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A Member Profile by Chris Davison, davison@intellcap.com
John Miller is President of the NBC Agency and Chief Marketing Officer for the NBC Universal Television Group. John began his career at a local television station and has since worked in many areas of the business, from daytime to children’s to primetime. I recently had a chance to interview John to discuss Brandon Tartikoff, the Olympics and Lazy Sunday.
Q. Can you tell us about your background and what made you want to work in entertainment? How did you get involved with the HRTS?
-I started in local television in Chicago and was heading toward being a producer. The television station let go of their head of on-air promotion and asked me to take it on. I was soon hired by a competing station to run their promotion department – and a television marketing direction was established.
A few years later I moved to marketing at the network level and in 1985 took on the job of Head of Advertising and Promotion for NBC. Since then I have had other assignments such as programming daytime, children’s, primetime specials, and supervising sales marketing - but always at the core, I’ve supervised the Marketing at NBC. I’m currently President of the NBC Agency and CMO for NBC Universal Television Group.
As for the HRTS, my association started back in the mid-1980s. Brandon Tartikoff, to whom I reported, was serving as president of the organization. It seemed like a great opportunity to network and establish contacts, and I've been a member ever since.
Q. What are your thoughts on product integration and branded entertainment in general?
-product integration is productive for advertisers in a world where DVR penetration is at 35% and growing. We are actively working with advertisers in novel ways to ensure they can get their messages across in a DVR world. The challenge for a marketer, but also for show creators, is to integrate messages in such a way so that the integration feels like an organic part of the show.
We do a significant amount of work with advertisers trying to figure out how this can work in a show or through cross-marketing efforts.
Branded entertainment will expand as DVR penetration continues. However, it should be remembered that the 30-second spot is still a very viable means to reach an audience. That said, more and more there are opportunities for advertisers to take advantage of a promotional campaign, a show integration or perhaps be a sole sponsor for a show or a timeslot.
Q. How are things looking for the upfronts and infronts?
-at NBC we actually began our upfront process with the Super Bowl where we met with key advertisers. We called it the Superfront. We took the opportunity to speak to advertisers about late night transitions, about new shows, and about the Olympics.
We are now preparing our Infront presentations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. We’ll reveal show pick-ups, discuss digital opportunities and talk to the advertisers about how we can work together. The more intimate infront process is more effective than the big upfront mega-presentation because we can have a dialogue with advertisers. We have time to talk with them about what their needs are and how together we can find marketing solutions.
Q. What’s the marketing value of an event like the Super Bowl or the Olympics?
-these mega events attract huge audiences but more than that they tend to be events that create a collective consciousness with the American people. Spots in these events reach more people, are more memorable and generally work a bit harder than spots in other shows.
These types of events are few in number but clearly, the Olympics and the Super Bowl are at the very top of culture-creating events. We eagerly look forward to the next Olympics – Vancouver in 2010. What both events have in common is they reach a broad part of the viewing public in a short period of time. A marketer can significantly build awareness and interest if you have the right message. In terms of brand value, the Olympics is perhaps even a step above the Super Bowl. The Olympics carries a quality persona with it that is almost unlike anything else in television. When you put your message in the Olympics you actually receive benefits for that association. It is the one event that brings everyone together from around the world. A connection with the Olympic experience really resonates very strongly. We do post-analysis for all of our Olympic advertisers and the benefit it is for them, and it is remarkable and undeniable.
Q: Did “Lazy Sunday” help make YouTube what it is today?
-I think YouTube would have made it there by itself, but Lazy Sunday showed what YouTube could be. I think it also showed NBC what our video and broadband presence could be. It was probably a transitional moment for YouTube but it also made it very clear that broadband video was here to stay and is becoming a force.
Q: How do you see things changing over the next 3-5 years?
-broadcasting as a single revenue stream business is under great challenge. It is particularly stressful for local broadcasters. Local broadcasters have been supported by an ad base that includes auto dealers and retailers. Both categories have been hit very hard in this recession. A lot of television stations are scaling back or even eliminating their local news. Within a three to five year time frame there could be several markets that may only have one or two local newscasts, and I believe in markets 50 and above, a significant number will have limited to no local news presence…and that is a little scary to me.
There is always the Internet, but the Internet is very much a mix of news and opinion and sometimes it’s difficult to separate fact from rumor and conjecture in that space. My concern is that the television station which has been a local window on the world and provided a real service to the local community will have to cut back on local coverage and community outreach just to remain financially viable.
I am hopeful that the economy will come back and local television stations will find advertiser support and will be able to maintain robust local news presence.
Q. Anything you would like to add?
-throughout all of the changes I’ve seen in my career, one of the things that has remained constant is that content is still king. Whether watching on a black-and-white television or on your computer, good content will prevail. The second thing is that technology will define how people consume that content. And with that change of consumption will come a host of changes for marketers. As always, it will be an exciting ride.
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