BARCELONA — With Europe’s top entertainment marketers and designers assembled steps from Barcelona’s beaches, Red Bee’s Andy Bryant and Charlie Mawer used their lead-off session at PromaxBDA Europe 2016 on Monday to pivot from the industry’s endless hand-wringing over the future of television and advance a novel idea: there’s never been a better time to be working in entertainment marketing.

After speaking with top executives from both sides of the Atlantic for their forthcoming book The TV Brand Builders, Bryant, who serves as the UK-based agency’s Managing Director, and Mawer, Red Bee’s executive creative director, drew up 20 lessons from the folks who helped build some of the industry’s strongest brands for thriving in today’s climate.

“Our TV brand builders share an incredibly positive view of the industry we’re all lucky to work in,” Bryant told the audience.

He quoted AMC Networks’ marketing boss Linda Schupack as saying: “I am very privileged to be working in the New Golden Age of Television.”

We won’t give you all 20 lessons—you’ll need to buy the book to read them all. But among Bryant and Mawer’s highlights:

1. BELIEVE IN TV CHANNEL BRANDS

Sure, every marketer has a horror story about a young relative who has to ask what a “channel” is.

But in a world where John Landgraf can point to 400+ original series on the air in the U.S. and say “counting TV series is like counting lemmings. Hopefully they won’t run off a cliff,” a strong television brand remains the only way for a human being to cope with excessive choice, Bryant said.

He illustrated the point with a brand image spot from Canal+ that made the rounds in 2015:

“Only a strong, distinctive TV brand could have the confidence to run spot like that,” Bryant said.

The pair quoted ITV’s Rufus Radcliffe as saying “channel brands will only die if we let them die.”

2. REFRESH SHOWS WITH MARKETING-LED IDEAS

Here’s a familiar problem for marketing team. You’ve got your big, glossy entertainment format (see: Pop Idol, X Factor, The Voice) and the new season is coming up.

“Give or take a new judge there is nothing much to say about them,” Mawer said.

Unless: the showrunners work with the marketing team to flip the script.

Take ABC’s mainstay Dancing With the Stars.

By the time season 18 rolled around in March 2014, viewers had a pretty good idea about how the show worked. Or did they?

“Suddenly the creative team have a whole story to tell—not just in promos, but across social media,” Mawer said.

In a similar vein, Survivor cast their contestants for season 31 by assembling a group of failed former cast members and allowing the public to vote on who deserved a second chance.

“At a stroke, you have a marketing campaign. And even better: you have a reason for hundreds of thousands of people to visit your microsite,” Mawer added.

3. HARNESS THE POWER OF DAY-AND-DATE

In the factual world, where it’s increasingly difficult to create those must-see television moments, there’s nothing like a simultaneous rollout across every timezone in the world to get people’s attention.

That’s exactly what Fox did for its 2014 update of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

The series launched simultaneously across 220 channels in 181 countries at the exact same time.

For more lessons from the world’s top TV brand builders, pick up a copy of The TV Brand Builders by Andy Bryant and Charlie Mawer. On sale in Europe April 3 from Kogan Page.

[Photo by Tom Howard]

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