Media

What is Hulu you ask? Its a website. Some folks have coined it as “The YouTube Killer”, but essentially(according to the completely trustworthy sources of wikipedia) hulu.com is the joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp that allows visitors to watch online video content in both segments and full formats.  What’s most important is that you can watch what you want, when you want, for FREE.  This includes recent and archived TV programming, SNL best of skits, Movies (Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, MGM, etc.), and drum roll please….  the LIVE feed of the Presidential Inauguration on 1/20/2009.  All of this with limited commercial interruption.

I would love to dive into the advertising ramifications of all of this - how can PF clients utilize this site in order to derive lead flow, but I am keeping the blog short this month, as you should probably spend some time checking out the website instead:

www.hulu.com

Perhaps that topic will be covered in February!

And as a treat for those who like trivia - Hulu is actually derived from a Chinese Proverb meaning “holder of precious things” (again wikipedia)

What exactly does one think of when discussing out of the box advertising? Perhaps its the recent anti-smoking commercials where song, dance, and mythical cartoon animals are used to help spread a message. Or, it could possibly be talking urinal cake advertising (don’t believe me? check out - http://www.wizmark.com/). Maybe its even the little messages that you can find on Taco Bell sauce packets - “At night the sporks pick on me” or “You had me at Taco”. And, I guess I should at least mention rickshaw advertising.

While these are all pretty out of the box ideas for getting attention, it is important to remember that when it comes to advertising for our clients, the OOTB ideas don’t always have to be flashy. Sometimes its best to use the simplest of ideas to help mine leads for our clientele. For instance, one could look into designing a print ad with the same look and feel that you might find on a movie poster, and run it in the FYI/Movies section of the major daily for any given market.

A really effective way to find some of these “hidden” OOTB opportunities is to ask the vendors you work with if there is something available that isn’t the norm, and could possibly be used as added value. You never know what you may find, be it banner ads on the publication’s seasonal Fantasy Football website, or perhaps some sort of grassroots style mention on flyers for an upcoming concert - even at the concert.

Its amazing what even the smallest of these ideas can do. Keep in mind that running :60 spots during daytime rotators on TV was considered out of the box at some point, and this has been a very effective lead generator in several of the markets we work in across the nation.

I know that I have written this speaking mainly to the media placement side of things, but I hope that any non-media peeps still reading this far have taken away at least one thing from my little rant - and really, you should check out the talking urinal cakes. “Stop peeing your life away, call the Career University Training Academy. Classes starting now!”

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.