Twenty years ago, an upstart New York City-based network called MTV burst onto the scene with a sweepstakes giveaway that awarded not just a trip to an island paradise, but the island itself.

The rest, as they say, is marketing history.

Knowing they didn’t have the reach or resources of the [then] Big Three broadcast TV networks, fledgling cable enterprises sought to gain ground with advertisers and audiences alike through edgy, often ground-breaking promotions that compensated for miniscule marketing budgets.

This is an industry that was aware of all the promotional tactics early on, and has been employing them ever since, says Neal Frank, ceo at Marlin Entertainment, New York City, an agency that works with such networks as Comedy Central and VH1.

While many of those fledgling nets now enjoy strong ratings and well-known brand names, they’re still working overtime to stretch relatively small marketing allocations. There’s a false perception that cable networks have big budgets. They don’t, says John Zamoiski, ceo of Vertical Mix Marketing, New York City, an agency that serves Showtime and A&E, among others. Promotion is how they need to do business.

And doing business includes satisfying marketing partners. Cable networks still can’t compete with the reach of broadcast networks, so they have to work harder to provide alternative methods of delivering brand messages both on-air and off. That includes promotional opportunities pitched either as advertising value-adds or as separate programs.

For Atlanta-based TNT, promotions can lure new advertisers. Bank of America, San Francisco, signed on as a sponsor for the network’s James Dean biopic (premiering Aug. 5) after hearing about the promotions conducted for an original film called Running Mates last August. They liked the on-air tune-ins as well as the opportunity to be tagged on every single promotional element, says TNT spokesperson Lauren Hammann. Visa, San Francisco, was pleased enough with its sponsorship of The Wedding Singer broadcast premiere last November that it re-upped this summer to support TNT Original film The Mists of Avalon, she says.

Promotional work has enabled Home & Garden Television, New York City, to move beyond its original base of local advertisers. Today, our partners and promotions are more national in scope, says Lori Tarricone, vp-ad sales marketing.

Home & Garden teamed this spring with Walgreens and Johnson & Johnson on Brand Aid, an effort featuring endcaps in 1,500 Walgreens’ outlets touting the net’s Bugs: The Secret World of Gardens series and a sweepstakes awarding a trip for two to a beautiful garden somewhere in the U.S. Online, J&J’s Band-Aid sponsored hgtv.com and diynet.com, along with a co-branded Garden Aid microsite offering gardening tips and links to band-aid.com.

Promotions are a way to make our programs more entertaining and educational beyond just the broadcast, says Mike Mohamad, senior vp-marketing and on-air promotions at A&E, New York City, whose innovative leveraging of marketing partners both advertisers and non-advertisers has produced award-winning campaigns. They’re also another way for our advertisers to market beyond the 30-second spot and get a much bigger experience, he says.

Cable networks give us a bundle of advertising opportunities that usually aren’t provided by traditional TV networks, says Lisa Ginsberg, senior product manager at new Procter & Gamble unit Clairol, Stamford, CT, which sponsored A&E’s remake of The Great Gatsby in January. A&E provided us with national and local TV spots, print ads in Biography magazine, and banner ads on its Web site. Not only did we reach a broad audience via a synergistic approach, we were able to include a retail tie-in targeting an extended group of consumers beyond A&E viewers.

But promotion doesn’t always come cheap. When we include a logo on a TV spot or a mailer, that’s value-added for on-air advertisers, says Mohamad. But when we put together a promotion, it costs us a lot of money. Why would we let anyone in on that for free?

There are risks involved in such a strategy. If we do [the promotions] well, our advertisers want more, says Mohamad. If we do it terribly, then buddy, you better believe it works in reverse.

Ratings Boosters

Promotion is still in large part a self-marketing activity for many networks: The History Channel is currently running a mobile tour without any partners (see Entertainment Overdrive). And with everyone doing it, the bar is high to produce eye-catching and ground-breaking campaigns.

The cable networks don’t go for the standard cookie-cutter programs, says Marlin’s Frank. They’re trying to distinguish themselves from each other.

The cable industry is becoming more aggressive, adds Scot Safon, senior vp-marketing at TNT. It’s no longer just phone in and you could be a winner.

Such aggressive marketing behavior has fueled strong subscriber growth at CourtTV, New York City, which has doubled its base to 60 million since 1999. For less money [than mass media] we can do an awful lot, says executive vp-marketing Dan Levinson. We can create buzz and heat that you can’t get with more traditional advertising. The activity has also pulled in ad dollars. In 1999, we had just three upfront advertisers. Today, we have more than 30, Levinson says.

This year, CourtTV moved its efforts into local sports sponsorships. A deal with the National Hockey League’s Buffalo Sabres put the network’s logo on the team’s penalty box during this spring’s playoffs. During home games for Major League Baseball’s New York Mets, it sponsors replays of disputed calls on Shea Stadium’s video screens.

Also enjoying the newfound fruits of promotion is The Weather Channel, Atlanta, which for years generated about as much buzz in the cable world as the program guide channel. We really weren’t doing as much promotion as we should have, admits executive vp Steve Schiffman.

Today, however, The Weather Channel has added pizzazz with original content and inventive promotion, the former including Atmosphere, an hour-long news magazine, and Storm Week, the network’s version of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. In June, the network kicked off $15 million worth of promotional initiatives with WeatherQuest, a contest encouraging viewers to submit true tales of incredible weather experiences. The winner will be sent on a WeatherQuest experience to Hawaii and featured in a segment of Atmosphere. Subaru serves as title sponsor. Momentum, St. Louis, handles.

Brand Width

Cable networks are always looking to get more eyeballs. But they recognize the importance of brand building, too. There are two kinds of promotions, those where you’re just trying to boost sales and subscription numbers, and those where you team with a like-minded partner to extend the brand. says A&E’s Mohamad. What we do in consumer promotion is an extension of our programming in the same way as a Web site or TV spot.

To back the June 3rd debut of its new Biography special on The Impressionists, A&E reached out to local art museums with Fund Raiser In a Box. The network distributed edited versions of the four-hour program, providing stipends museums could use to host wine-and-cheese screening parties. Gallo Wines, Modesto, CA, donated cases of product for the events.

Elsewhere, automobile manufacturer Infinity, Carson, CA, sponsored a Make An Impression art contest, through which 1,700 original works in the Impressionist style were submitted by junior high and high school students. Two grand-prize winners will receive a trip to one of the most renowned U.S. museums and a $500 U.S. Savings Bond for art supplies.

On the more commercial side, A&E teamed with The Museum Company, Charlottesville, VA, for an in-store/online sweepstakes dubbed Springtime in Paris. The winner gets a trip for two to France.

To boost last month’s premiere of The Mists of Avalon, TNT recruited its own roundtable of partners. The film is based an eponymous book series about the Arthurian legends, which has a huge cult following, says Safon. So the network reached out to Renaissance festivals around the country by offering on-site pre-screenings, postcard and book giveaways, and contests awarding props from the film.

How can you turn down a TV movie-tie in like this? says Bob Turner, owner of Fremont, OH-based Medieval Fantasy Faire. The turnouts for the pre-screenings exceeded our expectations, I wish we had budgeted for more tickets.

Elsewhere, alternative beverage maker Merlin’s Energy Source, Santa Monica, CA, placed tabletop tents featuring key art and tune-in information in upscale bars across the country. New York City-based Barnes & Noble featured the Mists novels in endcaps with TNT posters in its Power Aisles, and carried a second display for the film’s soundtrack in music sections. TNT itself ran in-stadium signage at Women’s United Soccer Association games, NASCAR races, and the Wimbledon tennis tournament, and hosted an on-air/online sweeps dangling a one-week stay in a Scottish castle.

Greasing the Wheels

Motivating local cable operators is another primary goal. Showtime offered local affiliates a chance to win trips to Hawaii along with electronics products as part of a promotion last spring touting the premiere of The Chris Isaak Show. The affiliates were required to screen a promotional tape to find a code that would let them enter the sweeps. Vertical Mix handled.

In April, The Weather Channel hosted the Eye of the Storm Giveaway, a sweeps supporting its special Storm Week programming, and gave affiliates weekend getaway packages they could use to run their own promotions for customers. Participants could also win their own trips to a spa, golf course, or beach resort. New distribution deals gained through the effort brought a whopping 62 million new viewers into The Weather Channel fold.

There’s little argument that promotion strategies have lifted the status of more than a few networks. New York City-based Nickelodeon (July PROMO), for instance, has become a marketing powerhouse and a household name through its innovative efforts. Nickelodeon is an example of an organization that has truly leveraged the cable medium, but also expanded its message far beyond the television universe, says Brian Gies, director of youth and family marketing at oft-partnering Burger King, Miami.

Ultimately, cable promotion has provided a kick in the pants for what otherwise can be a passive medium. We can show [consumers] programming they like, but when their interests transcend watching to where they want to interact, that’s when we really succeed. says TNT’s Safon. It’s funny, we think interact is a high-tech buzzword. But consumer promotions have always been interactive.

And promotion has always been part of cable TV.

Twenty years ago, an upstart New York City-based network called MTV burst onto the scene with a sweepstakes giveaway that awarded not just a trip to an island paradise, but the island itself.

The rest, as they say, is marketing history.

Knowing they didn’t have the reach or resources of the [then] Big Three broadcast TV networks, fledgling cable enterprises sought to gain ground with advertisers and audiences alike through edgy, often ground-breaking promotions that compensated for miniscule marketing budgets.

“This is an industry that was aware of all the promotional tactics early on, and has been employing them ever since,” says Neal Frank, ceo at Marlin Entertainment, New York City, an agency that works with such networks as Comedy Central and VH1.

While many of those fledgling nets now enjoy strong ratings and well-known brand names, they’re still working overtime to stretch relatively small marketing allocations. “There’s a false perception that cable networks have big budgets. They don’t,” says John Zamoiski, ceo of Vertical Mix Marketing, New York City, an agency that serves Showtime and A&E, among others. “Promotion is how they need to do business.”

And doing business includes satisfying marketing partners. Cable networks still can’t compete with the reach of broadcast networks, so they have to work harder to provide alternative methods of delivering brand messages both on-air and off. That includes promotional opportunities pitched either as advertising value-adds or as separate programs.

For Atlanta-based TNT, promotions can lure new advertisers. Bank of America, San Francisco, signed on as a sponsor for the network’s James Dean biopic (premiering Aug. 5) after hearing about the promotions conducted for an original film called Running Mates last August. “They liked the on-air tune-ins as well as the opportunity to be tagged on every single promotional element,” says TNT spokesperson Lauren Hammann. Visa, San Francisco, was pleased enough with its sponsorship of The Wedding Singer broadcast premiere last November that it re-upped this summer to support TNT Original film The Mists of Avalon, she says.

Promotional work has enabled Home & Garden Television, New York City, to move beyond its original base of local advertisers. “Today, our partners and promotions are more national in scope,” says Lori Tarricone, vp-ad sales marketing.

Home & Garden teamed this spring with Walgreens and Johnson & Johnson on Brand Aid, an effort featuring endcaps in 1,500 Walgreens’ outlets touting the net’s Bugs: The Secret World of Gardens series and a sweepstakes awarding a trip for two to a beautiful garden somewhere in the U.S. Online, J&J’s Band-Aid sponsored hgtv.com and diynet.com, along with a co-branded Garden Aid microsite offering gardening tips and links to band-aid.com.

“Promotions are a way to make our programs more entertaining and educational beyond just the broadcast,” says Mike Mohamad, senior vp-marketing and on-air promotions at A&E, New York City, whose innovative leveraging of marketing partners — both advertisers and non-advertisers — has produced award-winning campaigns. They’re also “another way for our advertisers to market beyond the 30-second spot and get a much bigger experience,” he says.

“Cable networks give us a bundle of advertising opportunities that usually aren’t provided by traditional TV networks,” says Lisa Ginsberg, senior product manager at new Procter & Gamble unit Clairol, Stamford, CT, which sponsored A&E’s remake of The Great Gatsby in January. “A&E provided us with national and local TV spots, print ads in Biography magazine, and banner ads on its Web site. Not only did we reach a broad audience via a synergistic approach, we were able to include a retail tie-in targeting an extended group of consumers beyond A&E viewers.”

But promotion doesn’t always come cheap. “When we include a logo on a TV spot or a mailer, that’s value-added” for on-air advertisers, says Mohamad. “But when we put together a promotion, it costs us a lot of money. Why would we let anyone in on that for free?”

There are risks involved in such a strategy. “If we do [the promotions] well, our advertisers want more,” says Mohamad. “If we do it terribly, then buddy, you better believe it works in reverse.”

Ratings Boosters

Promotion is still in large part a self-marketing activity for many networks: The History Channel is currently running a mobile tour without any partners (see “Entertainment Overdrive”). And with everyone doing it, the bar is high to produce eye-catching and ground-breaking campaigns.

“The cable networks don’t go for the standard cookie-cutter programs,” says Marlin’s Frank. “They’re trying to distinguish themselves from each other.”

“The cable industry is becoming more aggressive,” adds Scot Safon, senior vp-marketing at TNT. “It’s no longer just ‘phone in and you could be a winner.’”

Such aggressive marketing behavior has fueled strong subscriber growth at CourtTV, New York City, which has doubled its base to 60 million since 1999. “For less money [than mass media] we can do an awful lot,” says executive vp-marketing Dan Levinson. “We can create buzz and heat that you can’t get with more traditional advertising.” The activity has also pulled in ad dollars. “In 1999, we had just three upfront advertisers. Today, we have more than 30,” Levinson says.

This year, CourtTV moved its efforts into local sports sponsorships. A deal with the National Hockey League’s Buffalo Sabres put the network’s logo on the team’s penalty box during this spring’s playoffs. During home games for Major League Baseball’s New York Mets, it sponsors replays of disputed calls on Shea Stadium’s video screens.

Also enjoying the newfound fruits of promotion is The Weather Channel, Atlanta, which for years generated about as much buzz in the cable world as the program guide channel. “We really weren’t doing as much promotion as we should have,” admits executive vp Steve Schiffman.

Today, however, The Weather Channel has added pizzazz with original content and inventive promotion, the former including Atmosphere, an hour-long news magazine, and Storm Week, the network’s version of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. In June, the network kicked off $15 million worth of promotional initiatives with WeatherQuest, a contest encouraging viewers to submit true tales of incredible weather experiences. The winner will be sent on a WeatherQuest experience to Hawaii and featured in a segment of Atmosphere. Subaru serves as title sponsor. Momentum, St. Louis, handles.

Brand Width

Cable networks are always looking to get more eyeballs. But they recognize the importance of brand building, too. “There are two kinds of promotions, those where you’re just trying to boost sales and subscription numbers, and those where you team with a like-minded partner to extend the brand.” says A&E’s Mohamad. “What we do in consumer promotion is an extension of our programming in the same way as a Web site or TV spot.”

To back the June 3rd debut of its new Biography special on The Impressionists, A&E reached out to local art museums with Fund Raiser In a Box. The network distributed edited versions of the four-hour program, providing stipends museums could use to host wine-and-cheese screening parties. Gallo Wines, Modesto, CA, donated cases of product for the events.

Elsewhere, automobile manufacturer Infinity, Carson, CA, sponsored a Make An Impression art contest, through which 1,700 original works in the Impressionist style were submitted by junior high and high school students. Two grand-prize winners will receive a trip to one of the most renowned U.S. museums and a $500 U.S. Savings Bond for art supplies.

On the more commercial side, A&E teamed with The Museum Company, Charlottesville, VA, for an in-store/online sweepstakes dubbed Springtime in Paris. The winner gets a trip for two to France.

To boost last month’s premiere of The Mists of Avalon, TNT recruited its own roundtable of partners. The film is based an eponymous book series about the Arthurian legends, which “has a huge cult following,” says Safon. So the network reached out to Renaissance festivals around the country by offering on-site pre-screenings, postcard and book giveaways, and contests awarding props from the film.

“How can you turn down a TV movie-tie in like this?” says Bob Turner, owner of Fremont, OH-based Medieval Fantasy Faire. “The turnouts for the pre-screenings exceeded our expectations, I wish we had budgeted for more tickets.”

Elsewhere, alternative beverage maker Merlin’s Energy Source, Santa Monica, CA, placed tabletop tents featuring key art and tune-in information in upscale bars across the country. New York City-based Barnes & Noble featured the Mists novels in endcaps with TNT posters in its Power Aisles, and carried a second display for the film’s soundtrack in music sections. TNT itself ran in-stadium signage at Women’s United Soccer Association games, NASCAR races, and the Wimbledon tennis tournament, and hosted an on-air/online sweeps dangling a one-week stay in a Scottish castle.

Greasing the Wheels

Motivating local cable operators is another primary goal. Showtime offered local affiliates a chance to win trips to Hawaii along with electronics products as part of a promotion last spring touting the premiere of The Chris Isaak Show. The affiliates were required to screen a promotional tape to find a code that would let them enter the sweeps. Vertical Mix handled.

In April, The Weather Channel hosted the Eye of the Storm Giveaway, a sweeps supporting its special Storm Week programming, and gave affiliates weekend getaway packages they could use to run their own promotions for customers. Participants could also win their own trips to a spa, golf course, or beach resort. New distribution deals gained through the effort brought a whopping 62 million new viewers into The Weather Channel fold.

There’s little argument that promotion strategies have lifted the status of more than a few networks. New York City-based Nickelodeon (July PROMO), for instance, has become a marketing powerhouse — and a household name — through its innovative efforts. “Nickelodeon is an example of an organization that has truly leveraged the cable medium, but also expanded its message far beyond the television universe,” says Brian Gies, director of youth and family marketing at oft-partnering Burger King, Miami.

Ultimately, cable promotion has provided a kick in the pants for what otherwise can be a passive medium. “We can show [consumers] programming they like, but when their interests transcend watching to where they want to interact, that’s when we really succeed.” says TNT’s Safon. “It’s funny, we think ‘interact’ is a high-tech buzzword. But consumer promotions have always been interactive.”

And promotion has always been part of cable TV.