WDAF

WVUE, Gray’s Fox affiliate in New Orleans, took a tongue in cheek approach to its Super Bowl Sunday strategy with a series of promos for its 10 o’clock news. “We went hyper local,” said Blaine Strawn, WVUE’s marketing director. “Granted, most viewers outside of New Orleans won’t understand, but we knew our viewers would.”

“Rather than just one promo,” said Scott Brady, WDRB’s creative services VP, “we launched a whole new news campaign. This was a half-day of tremendous viewing sampling with much of our competitors’ audience tuning in as well! The Strategy was Super Bowl Sunday rather than just the Big Game Ad.”

As you would imagine with the home town team Kansas City Chiefs playing in the Super Bowl, viewership on the Fox affiliate, WDAF, would be high. And the creative services team at Nexstar’s WDAF was ready.

The San Francisco 49ers are playing against the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl this Sunday. Their appearance in the big game is causing fans across the Bay Area, and even some people who work at KTVU, to come down with some kind of strange fever.

In Kansas City, WDAF got some Kansas City fans together outside, in 14 degree weather, to show their colors. “It’s gets cold here, we play in the cold, our stadium is outside and we tough it,” said Danielle Ray, WDAF’s creative services director.

Two local TV news directors and a general manager attended the Promax Station Summit last month in Las Vegas. After you read what they have to say about it, this may start a trend. “I am really glad I went,” said one. “To me, having both the news director and creative services director there to hear the same information is key,” said another. “I was taking notes like a fiend.”

When you think about it, few careers demand you be creative every day as much as being in the marketing department of a TV station. So how do local TV creative services directors and marketing managers keep themselves and their staff from getting burned out, stuck? That was the mission of the first-time session, Unstuck, at the Promax Station Summit last week in Las Vegas. Check it out.

At the Promax Station Summit last week in Las Vegas, attendees filled the room for the session Zero Budget Magic, to see how imagination, and little more, is the only currency allowed in spots submitted from stations across the country. Here are all 40 of them.

Last week at the Promax Station Summit in Las Vegas, another Battle of the Promo Superstars took place. Four TV station creative services departments were given the same special report investigative story. Each department had 48 hours to turn around a 30-second promo with shorter versions, including one for social media. Check them out.

“Too often, we are promoting our technology and not our people,” said Danielle Ray, the creative services director at WDAF.  “Every station has great technology, but our people set us apart and how they tell the ‘weather story’ is different. That was our inspiration for these promos.”