Here is Drew with the marketing objectives that helped create this campaign:
The marketing objective on this is two-fold, and probably not alot different from most marketing plans for stations going up against a dominant market leader. First was differentiation. We needed to differentiate in both style and substance...which begged for the black and white look... as well as the sparseness of the promos. Most news promos are cut as fast as they can, and written from a perspective of "What we got" instead of "What's important to you". To differentiate, we decided to slow down to an almost uncomfortable level for most of us.
Second, we knew we needed the campaign to be a bit controversial, and make every spot work for us, and the brand.
So.. Teasers and talent walk-ons were the most simple.. and certainly a starting place.
The teasers were designed with the idea of, what's the sound that makes you look at the TV from whatever you're doing? The answer, to us, was silence. When the TV stops making sound, it's more jarring than almost any other noise! So.. I'd agree that from a production standpoint, these would PLAY better with music or production values.. but that wasn't the point. The point was to grab you and get you actively saying in your mind... what the hell was that? Even better to be saying: What the hell are those guys DOING??
In a small way, they were MEANT to be a little frustrating.. and to get people guessing about what they meant.
The second phase, with the talent walks.. was a simple reveal. Ask the question.. intro talent... reveal the brand line. Totally agree that music would have played these up ... but we wanted these spots to be sparse and simple. If you had walked away from the first phase humming music, rather than saying "Asking Question. Getting Answers." we would have failed!
As you see, the next few phases intro music in, and higher production values. Although I will say that we haven;t even begun to tap where we're going on these spots.
The big idea is to get the branding out there in a way that means something to viewers... we're only 5 months into this, and it's starting to take hold!!
