When news of the worsening coronavirus pandemic started to emerge, the marketing team at Tegna NBC affiliate WGRZ Buffalo, NY, started sharing messages of hope on the station’s internal video boards.

But as the pandemic has gone on and the news has become ever more stressful, WGRZ Marketing Director Daniel Meyers thought “why not share these messages of hope and encouragement with our audience? People are down and getting nervous and concerned. We wanted to spread a little hope and positivity that we’ll get through this together.”

To produce the spots, the team turned to in-house photos that station photographers had taken through the years and then dimmed and intensified to accompany the messaging. Meyers and his team, including Multiplatform Producer Jim Caskie, searched out positive quotes from the likes of Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Goo Goo Dolls, and then added some emotional music from the FirstCom music library. They then cut the spots into :10, :15, :30 and :60 versions to run on the station’s linear, digital and social platforms. The :60 version is above.

“Responses and feedback from viewers in our market has been overwhelmingly positive with thank you’s for being positive about this story,” said Meyers. “As long as people still need messages of encouragement and hope, we’ll continue to produce campaigns of this nature.”

CREDITS

Marketing Director, WGRZ: Dan Meyers

Multi-Platform Marketing Producer, WGRZ: Jim Caskie

Tags: coronavirus covid-19 hot spots tegna wgrz


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