Red Bee’s Andy Bryant and Charlie Mawer have published a new book, The TV Brand Builders: How to Win Audiences and Influence Viewers. Billed as “the definitive account of how the biggest television networks, channels and programs are created as brands,” the book includes “rare privileged access to the marketing strategies and creative thinking behind culturally defining TV promos, digital and social media campaigns and design identities.”

Below is an excerpt from the book’s chapter on “the future of TV marketing:”

The Enduring Power of Hits

Former New York Times TV reporter Bill Carter, in his entertaining book about the giants of US television, Desperate Networks, wrote about the then chairman of NBC, Bob Wright, who was anxious about the success of rival network ABC:

“As much as he was convinced that the future of television would be ruled by unpredictable, sweeping change, Wright knew one thing had not changed and would not change. No matter how they viewed television – on their computer monitors, on their mobile phones, or on TV screens as big as medieval tapestries – people would still want to see hit shows. If you had hits, it would not matter where and how the revenue came in; you would always be in business,” Carter wrote.

Today’s TV marketers could be forgiven for thinking that “unpredictable, sweeping change” bringing new ways to watch television has been a relatively recent phenomenon, but Carter was writing back in 2006.

With the rise and rise of online media, a surefire way to grab attention and attract clicks has been to write headlines and soundbites about the disruptive forces in the TV industry. We opened Chapter 2 with predictions of doom for TV channels. In September 2015 Apple CEO Tim Cook proclaimed that ‘the future of TV is apps’, followed within days by Netflix chairman and CEO Reed Hastings confidently predicting that cable networks will die for good and all TV will be on the internet. It is much less fashionable to talk about the features of the industry that will endure in the face of tech-driven upheaval, not least, as Bob Wright knew in the middle of the 2000s, the fact that successful television organizations have always been and will continue to be driven by programmes that people love to watch.

As we have shown throughout this book, there have been many new hit shows since Carter wrote Desperate Networks and innovative marketing has been influential in building their success. In some cases this has been through the extraordinarily creative application of traditional methods such as on-air promotional campaigns, title sequences and print ads: HBO’s spellbinding launch trailer for True Detective and the layered approach of Fox’s Empire; the iconic ‘falling man’ in Mad Men’s opening titles; the striking key art for FX shows such as American Horror Story.

In other cases it has been by harnessing social media and interactive technology to promote titles as diverse as Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother, CBBC’s Horrible Histories and Bravo’s Real Housewives. And throughout the 2010s viewing decisions and content discovery have been aided by clearly positioned channel brands with distinctive visual identities: the fearless storytelling of FX, the witty banter of Dave, the characters of USA Network or the alternative voices and risk taking of Channel 4. As the US essayist and journalist Michael Wolff wrote in his book Television is the New Television, far from being trampled by digital challengers TV has become one of the fastest-growing business sectors, where consumers and advertisers are prepared to pay for “the influential, the prestigious, the culturally significant, a business and medium of value, need, originality, and exclusivity.” And marketing has played a big part in creating this value.

So, what of the next decade or so? How are hit shows going to be driven in an industry in which the distribution of wealth is undoubtedly shifting and traditional ad-supported TV models are being shaken? How are valuable TV brands going to be built?

Bryant and Mawer will be on hand next week at PromaxBDA: The Conference 2016 at the New York Hilton Midtown.

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