News promotion should always highlight your station’s strengths – never use it to prop up perceived weaknesses. Your strengths define you. They’re the reason people watch. It’s a good practice to consistently reinforce and showcase them to viewers.
The Coca-Cola Company still heavily advertises Coke, despite it being the most recognized product in the world. Procter & Gamble still promotes Tide. Take a cue from these guys – go with your strengths.
Don’t fall victim to the practice of using promotion to punch up news elements that lack widespread viewer appeal. Stations take this route when operating under the mistaken belief that more exposure will remedy this problem.
Truth is, the opposite happens. People are reminded of what they don’t like and your key viewing magnets get underexposed.
You can never promote your strengths enough.
Imagine the Lakers taking the ball out of Kobe Bryant’s hands and making Lamar Odom the centerpiece of the offense. The rationale? Lamar’s a good player and people need to see how good he really is. Let’s ease the throttle on Kobe because everybody already knows how great he is.
Ain’t going to happen.
Consider this situation. If you have the most popular anchor team in town, your promotion should center around them. Showcase them in a variety of approaches – tell their life stories, get their perspective on the station’s news coverage, have them endorse other newsteam members, show them interacting with viewers, highlight their memorable news moments, have them “sell” your news effort, and so forth.
Avoid the temptation to showcase another news element in the hopes of building it up. Wait until viewers give you clear evidence that it’s a key to your success before doing so.
Otherwise, you diminish the importance of your anchors as a promotional tool. You assume that the popularity of the news anchors needs no reinforcement.
The real issue isn’t about reinforcing anchor popularity.
The real issue is effectively promoting your station by showcasing its strengths – that’s why viewers watch you.
It’s news promotion done right.
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