Media

If you are someone that has ever worked in, with, or around the Media Department, you are most likely well aware of the popular daytime programming that works very well in mining leads for our clientele. This includes the Springer’s, the Maury’s, Court programming etc.

Well, instead of cramming more insight into your brain about why these programs work, or what they are about (be it “I’m Pimpin’ my Mom”, “Angry Women Smackdown!”, the classic “Jerry’s Thanksgiving Special”, or otherwise), instead I have decided to tell you about a show you may not have heard of (and perhaps even give you reason to stop forcing yourself to watch summer re-runs during prime-time). I would like to tell you about a show that in my opinion is probably the greatest drama to ever hit Television. In fact this show was deemed so prolific that CBS even bought the rights to show the first full season (although edited into a much tamer version) from Showtime. This is the first time that a deal like this has ever taken place, the five Emmy nominations didn’t hurt things either….

Well folks, if you haven’t guessed it by now, I am talking about Dexter. Originally adapted for Television from Jeff Lindsay’s novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter (which is just one in the series of books), this series is centered around the character Dexter Morgan. Dexter works for the Miami-Metro PD as a forensic blood spatter analyst. At least that’s what he does to pay the rent.

Dexter, you see, is in all actuality a serial killer. He however is not just a crazed sociopath that goes on random sprees and preying on the innocent. No, far from it. He is more-so a very calculating, thorough, and precise killing machine - but there is a catch. Dexter only kills those deemed as “deserving”. Be it a mass murderer, or someone who brings harm to children, Dexter feeds his desire to feed his insatiable drive to kill by ridding what most of society could consider terrible individuals. Dexter derived his planning (and victim selection) from his adoptive father, Officer Harry Morgan, who noticed Dexter’s dark desires at a young age.

All apologies to those reading this who find the topic somewhat grotesque, but I will leave the remainder of the details (including all of the twists and turns) for the rest of you to see on your own. Dexter season 3 begins this September on Showtime, and the first season is currently for sale via a variety of outlets (season 2 will be available very soon).

Too bad Showtime is not a great place to reach our client’s demographic.

- John Carmichael

When I meet people outside of PlattForm, and I explain I work in the Media department, I often have to go a step further to explain to them exactly who we are. “You know the commercials you see during the daytime for schools in your areas? Chances are the PlattForm Media department was involved.” Sometimes I’ll get a flash of recognition and sometimes I’ll get more questions probing into what exactly the career college sector is.

In some cases those who might not be completely informed about what a career college really is, can sometimes have a skewed view of the sector. I wish every time that happened I could take that individual to an actual career college and show them what really goes on there. It’s incredible and even humbling to see the dedication the educators and students both share in.

Recently, I had the chance to visit one of our client’s campuses and get a tour of the facility while classes were in session. The halls were filled with messages of motivation encouraging students to keep pushing into that next phase of their lives that a career education can offer. Various billboards throughout the building honored students who had achieved the president’s list for excellence in grades.

All that was pretty impressive – I know we didn’t have anything that motivational where I went to college – but for me, I was more moved by actually meeting one of the students. She had already earned one diploma and was hard at work on a second. Whenever I’ve had the chance to meet actual students for the schools we serve, the level of motivation and dedication never fails to astound me. These are people who are getting a chance, sometimes a second one, to improve their lives or their family’s lives by furthering and completing their education to get a better career. And from my perspective, they work twice as hard to fulfill that dream than some traditional college I’ve seen (probably mostly in the mirror). It puts a lot of perspective onto what we do in Media. It changes the way I look at CPL or even a lead for that matter. It adds so much value to what I do as a Media professional and gives me conviction to do it better every day.

I recently had the opportunity to take a 4-year-old to a playground. I don’t have any kids of my own, so I hadn’t actually been to a playground for years. Things had changed … drastically.

In my day, if someone fell down playing tag, they had to dig the pieces of gravel out from the palms of their hands. These days, if a kid falls down, they just bounce right back up – the ground is made of this soft, springy material that looks kind of like burnt angel hair pasta up close.

The 4-year-old I was hanging out with was building a sand castle. He was having the time of his life running back and forth between the sandbox and the water fountain to get water for the moat. His castle was getting HUGE … There was just one problem – it was right next to a row of ½ buried tires.

Some older kids who were probably around 6-years-old started playing a rousing game of Hot Lava – that game where you can’t touch the ground because it’s actually burning lava that will melt you upon contact – and suddenly, my 4-year-old’s castle was in a precarious position.

One of the big kids met with lava doom right in the second story of the castle.

Stuff like that happens all the time, right? It did even when I was a kid. What struck me as so odd about this encounter was the big kid’s response. He stopped, pointed at the tires near the sand castle remains and said, “Location, location, location.”

What?!!! I almost let an expletive fly. A mantra usually reserved for adults used with such ease and appropriateness – coming from a child? This 6-year-old might just have a future as a PlattForm media buyer. Who else focuses on placement like that?

At PlattForm, no one knows the importance of ad placement like Media Buyers. They’re responsible for buying air time on television and radio stations, and space in newspapers and publications or inserts, line ads, display ads and advertorials for our clients. So, they have to know what works.

They track every ad, down to the minute it runs. And they know which commercials perform the best, and which time slot gets the best results. So, they can tell you exactly which commercial should be run and the approximate time it should air.

They’re constantly building relationships with the media reps they purchase advertising space from. And, they occasionally have to play hardball with those reps to negotiate better rates for our clients.

In a way, it’s kind of like PlattForm Media Buyers make sure our client’s sandcastles don’t drown in a sea of hot lava. And, everyone who was once a child knows how important that is.

Recently I was watching a program on the Discovery Science Channel about what life will be like 50 years from now. It looks like there will be invisible suits for our troops and magic elevators to space stations. Also: we will be wearing those futuristic jumpsuits that seem to be in every bad sci-fi movie. (Which I don’t believe with happen. In the past 50 years, the only major breakthrough in what we wear just may be the hoodie.)

It got me wondering… what will the Media landscape look like 50 years from now? So with my apologies to Conan O’Brien, I now present my glimpse of the future of Media. A glimpse all the way to the year 2058:

• Daytime television programming will consist of shows about schools and lawyers, while commercials will be brief court rulings, thirty seconds of catfights on Jerry Springer, and Barbara Walters and whoever the new panel consists of on “The View.”
• In an effort to become a “greener” industry, paper companies will start using 98% post-consumer waste when printing inserts. However, a detective starts digging in too deep and discovers that the inserts are made…of people!
• After the XM-Sirius Satellite radio merger, terrestrial radio couldn’t compete and eventually became a thing of the past. Instead of live deejays for remotes at open houses, lifeless robots now handle announcing duties. Or Spencer Pratt from “The Hills,” if you can’t afford the robots.
• Because most news is obtained on the Internet, local papers are only printed for wrapping things to be packed for moving and used in hamster cages. As a result advertising for moving science schools and hamster care schools skyrocket.

My point? There’s a lot of change predicted for how traditional media will operate in the future. To predict too far out would be almost an exercise in futility, because so many things can change. Who would have expected the Internet to become such a prevalent way to search for qualified leads? What I do know is that there will always be an audience for those who need to learn and develop their careers. Whether we get their attention though the Internet, High-Def TV, or writing on the moon, we’re ready to face what the future holds.

In the world of advertising, generating excitement for a product is crucial. (In my last blog, I talked about testimonials as a way of building buzz.) However, it’s one thing to have the buzz, and another thing entirely to live up to the hype. Being a pop culture junkie, I’ve got two great examples of buzz-worthy properties. One failed to meet the expectations – trust me, they were low – and the other knocked it out of the park.

The online buzz leading up to the release of “Snakes on a Plane” reached a near deafening roar prior to its August 2006 release. Is there anyone plugged in to the pop culture zeitgeist who wasn’t aware of Sam Jackson’s specific words of frustration regarding the titular reptiles? What a disappointment then, that the film failed to deliver on what would easily be described as meager expectations. No one would expect a movie called “Snakes on a Plane” to be a blockbuster initially, but based on the hype, it should have been a hit. Too bad for the filmmakers, when the proof is in the pudding, you gotta have the right ingredients. “SoaP” did not.

Now that we have even a small amount of hindsight, I don’t have any qualms saying that “Cloverfield” was a buzz-built blockbuster. In its first week of release thriller/character study pulled in $41 million, easily recouping just the production budget of $25 million alone. (And for the record, I thought it was an inspired twist on the genre it inhabits.) The producers cleverly released near-frustrating tidbits of information on the film – we didn’t even know that “Cloverfield” was indeed the actual title until shortly before its release. Watercoolers, both real life and virtual, were surrounded by people willing to speculate on what exactly this movie was. Was it even real, or just hype for something else? In the end, the overall critical reception has been positive, and it looks like “Cloverfield” is going to surpass the buzz-worthy expectations placed upon it to become 2008’s first bona fide hit movie.

So where am I going with this?

PlattForm’s always had a lot of hype built up around it as a sector leader. But once you get past the idea of great buzz, you gotta deliver results. And that’s what we strive to do on a weekly, daily, even hourly basis.

Existing clients, new clients, prospective clients, employees, vendors, other sector rivals -
Here’s my message to you: In 2008, PlattForm will continue to generate the buzz it’s always had. When 2009 starts, you’ll know it wasn’t just hype.