Mail I'd sent to my [marketing] team a while back during some VJ hunt promotion...
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The Things We Think But Do Not Say
Thoughts of an MTV Marketing Guy – Or someone who saw Jerry Maguire last night
We’re in a rut. Routine. Going about the motions. Brief in. Brief out. Template set hai. Lagaao. Budget in. Spot out. E-mail in. E-mail out.
It’s not like we’re not doing our jobs. Or not doing stuff sincerely. We still are. And we’re still ahead of the rest. Better than the others. Not to flatter ourselves, but that’s cause our average is better than most people’s best.
But just the way most stuff comes to us, and just the way we evaluate it… it’s regulation. Our current levels of effort, I mean. We’re there. Just there. Neutral. Nothing more. Nothing less. We may be better than the others, but we’re not better than ourselves. Forget better than, we’re not even as good as our usual selves.
The truth is, we’re bored. Uninspired. Unexcited.
Meanwhile, Popstars is out there with 107 different creatives, a 2-3 crore off-air marketing budget, a 5 channel premiere. And this is just the start! Wait till the album & video happen. It’s gonna be even louder. It’s gonna be the benchmark promotion. You can forget next year’s Gautam Ghosal trophy!
Meanwhile, we’ll be standing around, saying, “Wow!”
Meanwhile, we’re bored. Unexcited. Not motivated. Grey.
I CARE VERY MUCH ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE’VE LEARNED TO CARE LESS.
Okay, here’s the cue to pull out our excuses…
1. No budgets: vis a vis competition, vis a vis our own last year, vis a vis threshold, basic, minimum requirements
2. No support: from people around, from other departments
3. No time: between green flag and kick-off; or because of too much other shit on our plate
4. No focus: again, too much happening, no prioritization, first half a marketing project and later on a production gig
5. No brains: we’re just surrounded by idiots, they don’t even try to think
6. No interest: “what’s the point?”, “last time, kitna bola, kitna try kiya!”, “nothing changes”, “it’s no use, we’ve been thru these… “
7. No space: too much interference, too many opinions, from clients, bosses, colleagues… CHUTS!
Tell me something new.
I’m not about to offer counters or solutions to each or any one of these. I don’t have any. I just have the same bunch of people and problems to deal with.
We have two options.
Option 1: Give up. Throw in the towel. The path of least resistance. That’s easy. That’s boring. That’s, also, not us.
If you choose to go with that, stop reading this. Exit this file, this program, this computer, this project. Go fucking home!
Option 2: Give it a shot. A serious shot.
I’m not suggesting you change the world; launch a satellite; VH1; MTV’s radio initiative or relaunch Nick. I don’t even want you to try and change the face of the channel or the way production, programming and marketing operate. No, don’t bother to try and triple our turnover (though that would be nice).
I’m simply suggesting, take one small step. One micro mini step at a time. Specifically; let’s focus, pick one thing where hopefully where we have a little more control / say.
VJ Hunt.
Pick one element of VJ Hunt: the creative, the programming support, the comms push, the online, the cross channel push, the TAR element, radio, online, sms, stunts, research.
Own it. Make it ROCK!
So if you have programming… how else are you gonna use the channel and all of our 26 on-air properties (shows, vignettes and platforms). Beyond the in-show plugs. Beyond the loop back of auditions. How are you going to drive eyeballs back to the channel? And where? To Most Wanted? Do we take over that show? What are the 68 programming (no cost – low cost) ideas that we have? Have we even spoken about those to PnP? Have we even tried building a case of why it’s necessary? And if we’ve been already turned down, have we tried harder? Used the bosses if necessary? Or got something else to replace these? E.g. OAP clips? How does it matter, as long as the objectives are achieved?
Ditto on online. Say who gives a fuck. But have we thought of something loud, outrageous, wHacky (there, I said it!) enough to make news on its own!
On the creative. If you have a point of view, are you going to fight like a kutta to make sure you’re heard. And your points taken on the look, feel, tone, content, tie in, tie out and even the size of the logo? Or are you going to give in? As always?
If the trade perception is MTV can’t pull off something of a huge scale… (the truth is apni gaand mein nahi hai dum)… but that it’s the place for wHacky (there, I did it again!), original ideas. Then why don’t we capitalise on this. Or fuck it, control-alt-delete. Let’s just do what we want.
But let’s DO what we want. Let’s show all the mother-fuckers in here and out there how to do, run, drive a good promotion.
And purely from a selfish point of view. Let’s do something about our boredom.
Let’s turn grey to yellow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Things We Think But Do Not Say
Thoughts of an MTV Marketing Guy – Or someone who saw Jerry Maguire last night
We’re in a rut. Routine. Going about the motions. Brief in. Brief out. Template set hai. Lagaao. Budget in. Spot out. E-mail in. E-mail out.
It’s not like we’re not doing our jobs. Or not doing stuff sincerely. We still are. And we’re still ahead of the rest. Better than the others. Not to flatter ourselves, but that’s cause our average is better than most people’s best.
But just the way most stuff comes to us, and just the way we evaluate it… it’s regulation. Our current levels of effort, I mean. We’re there. Just there. Neutral. Nothing more. Nothing less. We may be better than the others, but we’re not better than ourselves. Forget better than, we’re not even as good as our usual selves.
The truth is, we’re bored. Uninspired. Unexcited.
Meanwhile, Popstars is out there with 107 different creatives, a 2-3 crore off-air marketing budget, a 5 channel premiere. And this is just the start! Wait till the album & video happen. It’s gonna be even louder. It’s gonna be the benchmark promotion. You can forget next year’s Gautam Ghosal trophy!
Meanwhile, we’ll be standing around, saying, “Wow!”
Meanwhile, we’re bored. Unexcited. Not motivated. Grey.
I CARE VERY MUCH ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE’VE LEARNED TO CARE LESS.
Okay, here’s the cue to pull out our excuses…
1. No budgets: vis a vis competition, vis a vis our own last year, vis a vis threshold, basic, minimum requirements
2. No support: from people around, from other departments
3. No time: between green flag and kick-off; or because of too much other shit on our plate
4. No focus: again, too much happening, no prioritization, first half a marketing project and later on a production gig
5. No brains: we’re just surrounded by idiots, they don’t even try to think
6. No interest: “what’s the point?”, “last time, kitna bola, kitna try kiya!”, “nothing changes”, “it’s no use, we’ve been thru these… “
7. No space: too much interference, too many opinions, from clients, bosses, colleagues… CHUTS!
Tell me something new.
I’m not about to offer counters or solutions to each or any one of these. I don’t have any. I just have the same bunch of people and problems to deal with.
We have two options.
Option 1: Give up. Throw in the towel. The path of least resistance. That’s easy. That’s boring. That’s, also, not us.
If you choose to go with that, stop reading this. Exit this file, this program, this computer, this project. Go fucking home!
Option 2: Give it a shot. A serious shot.
I’m not suggesting you change the world; launch a satellite; VH1; MTV’s radio initiative or relaunch Nick. I don’t even want you to try and change the face of the channel or the way production, programming and marketing operate. No, don’t bother to try and triple our turnover (though that would be nice).
I’m simply suggesting, take one small step. One micro mini step at a time. Specifically; let’s focus, pick one thing where hopefully where we have a little more control / say.
VJ Hunt.
Pick one element of VJ Hunt: the creative, the programming support, the comms push, the online, the cross channel push, the TAR element, radio, online, sms, stunts, research.
Own it. Make it ROCK!
So if you have programming… how else are you gonna use the channel and all of our 26 on-air properties (shows, vignettes and platforms). Beyond the in-show plugs. Beyond the loop back of auditions. How are you going to drive eyeballs back to the channel? And where? To Most Wanted? Do we take over that show? What are the 68 programming (no cost – low cost) ideas that we have? Have we even spoken about those to PnP? Have we even tried building a case of why it’s necessary? And if we’ve been already turned down, have we tried harder? Used the bosses if necessary? Or got something else to replace these? E.g. OAP clips? How does it matter, as long as the objectives are achieved?
Ditto on online. Say who gives a fuck. But have we thought of something loud, outrageous, wHacky (there, I said it!) enough to make news on its own!
On the creative. If you have a point of view, are you going to fight like a kutta to make sure you’re heard. And your points taken on the look, feel, tone, content, tie in, tie out and even the size of the logo? Or are you going to give in? As always?
If the trade perception is MTV can’t pull off something of a huge scale… (the truth is apni gaand mein nahi hai dum)… but that it’s the place for wHacky (there, I did it again!), original ideas. Then why don’t we capitalise on this. Or fuck it, control-alt-delete. Let’s just do what we want.
But let’s DO what we want. Let’s show all the mother-fuckers in here and out there how to do, run, drive a good promotion.
And purely from a selfish point of view. Let’s do something about our boredom.
Let’s turn grey to yellow.
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