MEDIA WATCH: DRTV Guide
Considering it’s on the coffee table of almost every household in America, TV Guide could be viewed as a fairly populist magazine. It comes as a surprise, then, that it seems to be a closet snob…at least where direct response television is concerned.
In its July 3 issue, TV Guide published an end-of-the-millennium roundup of the “Fifty Greatest TV Commercials of All Time.” The article itself was more provocative and complete than what many professional trade journals have published.
Except for its total omission of classic DRTV commercials. It slices, it dices, it’s part of American pop culture. How could the magazine have left the beloved Ginsu Knife spots off the list?
Writer Dottie Enrico canvassed some 37 top advertising executives with a ballot of 60 ads. (How the short list was created was not reported.) The executives were asked not to vote on any ads they or their agencies worked on. The top ad, incidentally, turned out to be Apple Computer’s “1984” image ad, which premiered on the 1984 Super Bowl telecast.
A few direct-related ads did make the cut. Federal Express’ 1981 “Fast-Paced World” – featuring fast-talker John Moschitta – made the top 10. And a sidebar of the 10 catchiest tag lines included a DRTV spot with the immortal line “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
But don’t mind us. We’re suspicious of any ad list where the Energizer Bunny only comes in at 19.
– The June 22 Village Voice reported that fans are behind a loyalty marketing fiasco for the WB Network’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Bootleg copies of the postponed season finale are being distributed over the same Internet sites the WB has been relying on to help build ratings and momentum for the show.
Because of the Littleton, CO incident, the network held off the U.S. airing of the episode, which centered on a high school graduation ceremony turning into a battlefield. (Buffy and her pals had to stop the principal from turning into a giant demonic serpent.)
The episode was not pulled in Canada, however, where “Buffy” buffs quickly recorded it and distributed copies over fan Web sites for their deprived U.S. kin.
Voice writer Steve Wilson notes that the “turn of events is rather poetic, given that the WB has relied heavily on the Net to reach out to fans. Now the groupies who were cultivated with the medium have used that very tool as a weapon against the network.” Wilson also quotes Carl Goodman, curator of digital media at the Museum of the Moving Image: “If you want to reap the benefits of the Internet as a huge direct marketing vehicle for media, you also have to accept the fact that it can be used to do an end run around [you].”
The lesson for loyalty marketing campaigns is simple: If the loyalty is not two-way, the fans will have their way.
