Last week Black Entertainment Television (BET) announced the BET Black Star Power Tour, a highly visible ten-city road show that will tout the urban-focused network's fall 2002 lineup. The rolling marketing push bears the traces of BET parent company Viacom, which purchased the network for $2.3 billion in November 2000.
The campaign, which BET said in a press release will extend its ??up close and personal connection with its viewers,? runs from May through September of this year.
Although the programming the Black Star Power Tour is hawking doesn't represent a radical departure from the network's past mix of music videos and talk shows, now that BET is part of the Viacom entertainment galaxy, it can tap into the marketing resources of its corporate brethren.
?Now I'm seeing more out of the network,? says Isabie Agagon, Adelphia regional marketing manager, western region. ?I'm seeing more support and materials. Not that I didn't see anything before, but it's just enhanced,? she says.
?I wouldn't say it's because of Viacom,? says Kelli Lawson, EVP-marketing and communications at BET, about her network's stepped-up marketing efforts. ?We're just working with people better.?
However, Lawson says that although the network's marketing budget did not change after the Viacom purchase ? in fact, she says, the staff has shrunk ? the improvements stem from working with all of Viacom's disparate units. A Viacom marketing council meets every other month, she says, and after the meeting ?creative people are always looking to help one another out.? Representatives from each Viacom unit ? among them MTV, TV Land, Paramount Pictures, Infinity (which owns and operates 180 radio stations) and Blockbuster ? attend the meetings, according to Lawson.
Although there hasn't been a marketing council meeting since the announcement of the Black Star Power Tour, Lawson is confident she'll get support, which will come, she says, ?above and beyond our normal off-channel buys.?
Curtis Gadson, BET SVP-programming, says that he started thinking about the tour a couple of years ago. ?Now's the time,? he says. ?We're experiencing record-breaking ratings and growth.? Gadson says he wants to ?take this momentum to the streets and give something back.? According to Kagan World Media, the databook and newsletter publisher that, like Cable World, is a subsidiary of Media Central, BET had 63.6 million subscribers at the end of 2001, up from 61.1 million in 2000.
BET has local marketing plans in place for the cities on the tour: Houston, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, Memphis, Atlanta and Miami-Fort Lauderdale. Lawson says BET will advertise on urban adult contemporary and hip-hop radio stations (including, she says, Viacom-owned Infinity stations) and in local papers. Local operators will tag television spots that BET creates, and national spots on BET will publicize the tour.
Jeff Siegel, VP-affiliate ad sales and new business at ESPN, says that on-site, traveling promotions put on by networks have proliferated over the last three years or so. ?It's not an inexpensive proposition,? he says. ?You've got to make a commitment to it ? staff, maintenance, equipment, everything.?
Traveling road shows can also help operators earn money from local ad sales, often in the face of rising license fees. ESPN, which through its ?ESPN the Truck? 50-city tour and other touring promotions earned affiliates $700 million during 2001, according to Siegel, is ?trying to build value for affiliates.? Since 1997, ESPN's monthly license fees per subscriber have increased from 62 cents to 70 cents.
BET's license fees have risen from 10 cents to 11 cents since 1997, a relatively modest cost to operators. But with BET's programming costs rising from $30.3 million in 1999 to $40.1 million in 2001 ? a 32.3% increase ? there likely is pressure to emphasize marketing and increase visibility.
Five of BET's top programs (Teen Summit, Comic View, Oh Drama!, Hits from the Streets and 106 & Park: BET's Top 10 Live) will be taped in a central location in each city slated for the tour, which will keep programming costs down amid the larger promotional outlay, says Gadson. ?You've got the same lights and cameras, right?? he says. ?Really, you have a rolling studio.? (Bobby Jones Gospel, BET's longest-running show, will be filmed in a local church in each market.)
Moreover, Gadson says, he sought a project that many of BET's divisions could pursue in tandem. He wanted ?one project that we all would benefit from, where there are some budgetary synergies where we can share resources.? Sharing makes the more than $500,000 cost of the tour more bearable. ?We're not asking any one department to foot the bill,? Gadson says. ?If we did that, we'd be in trouble.?
Back to this issue
