WRIC, Nexstar’s ABC affil in Richmond, Va., decided to tie-in to the Oscars with a series of 15-second promos starring their on-air talent. A great idea, well-executed.
The 95th Academy Awards air Sunday night, March 12, on ABC starting at 8 p.m. ET.
WRIC, Nexstar’s ABC affiliate in Richmond, Va., decided to tie-in to the Oscars with a series of 15-second promos starring their on-air talent.
Dixon Johnston, WRIC’s creative services director, says initially, they were going to use movies posters from famous Oscar-winning movies for IDs.
“But punting the idea around with the meteorologists, we realized there was bigger potential to do some playing with the lines,” Johnston says. “It started with just the two weather riffs, The Weatherman and 008 Licensed to Forecast, but people were just having so much fun with it, we opened it up to all the weekday anchors.”
Johnston says the Oscars campaign was a departure from the station’s usual aesthetic of branding with authenticity, but that a big event like the Oscars gave the station liberty to have some fun.
“Each anchor chose their own character, which was important because they really need to buy in to it,” he says. “We wouldn’t want to assign a character to someone that they weren’t feeling.”
In terms of production, the station needed to stay on the right side of trademarks and copyrights.
The majority of the graphics were created by WRIC’s new artist, Seth Turnage, and Johnston.
Comments (0)
Reader Interactions