How Did WMSN Get Its New News Anchor To Do That?

WMSN, Sinclair’s Fox affiliate in Madison, Wis., decided to promote its new news anchor through a tie-in to Fox’s popular The Masked Singer.

That idea won a 2021 FOXiE Award that recognizes and celebrates the most creative, inventive and effective promotional campaigns from Fox affiliate marketing teams across every DMA.

Linda Hart is the recipient of the second annual FOXiE Award for her team’s promotion of their new 9 p.m. news anchor, Brady Mallory, in the fall of 2020.

Hart says when she shared the idea internally with her staff, and they loved the plan to spin off the Fox show.

Mallory, on the other hand, was a little hesitant at first, Hart says.

Mallory was happy to help with the Masked News Anchor because he knew viewers would get a kick out of it, as long as the station created some other promos showcasing his commitment to the community.

“He wanted to cultivate his brand to be the nice guy that could be your son, grandson, neighbor, friendly face at the grocery store/coffee shop, or someone who cares about where he lives and the people there,” Hart says.

The Masked News Anchor won in the category titled, How Did You Get Your News Talent To Do That? which called for examples that showed integration of Fox content with local talent in either local news time, on-air or social.

Here’s what Hart wrote about the Masked News Anchor in her submission to Fox:

We hired a new News Anchor in the Fall of 2020. We thought it would be fun to tie-in The Masked Singer to tease to the viewers to guess who was behind the mask. I had a T-Rex inflatable Halloween Costume that I sanitized for our News Anchor to step into (we were in the middle of COVID so we were being safe!) My producer, Ian McKay, met our News Anchor, Brady Mallory, at our station and videotaped what you see here! I think it was a fun tie in with the show without it being too cheesy. I grabbed some confetti cannons from Party City & dropped them off at the station for Ian to produce. We aired the “Aware” spot two weeks prior to the Wednesday, October 7 episode of The Masked Singer. We aired the “Reveal” spot during The Masked Singer that night and aired the :10 throughout the week.

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