Brand Equity through Aggregation [Brand Compatible Content]

Shows must share brand value commonalities with the aggregating network to better build brand equity.

There is nothing new here, really. The compatibility of brand attributes between programme and TV network has been a fundamental element since TV II. Animal Planet acquires and commissions shows about wild life, and not about how to pimp your ride. That is quite obvious.

Niche channels have an advantage. It is easier to focus brand efforts, as your brand knowledge (identity and awareness) is pretty much built on the kind of programming you air. Of course, it requires the right amount of placement and promotion, but still, it is a lot more “concrete” to brand a niche channel than a general entertainment channel. But you always have the Discovery Channel, which pushes the boundaries a little further, moving the brand focus away from its product, and doing something more “abstract”, more emotionally connected, more like a lovemark (I’ll discuss Lovemarks in further posts).

I’d risk to say that the bottom line is that the tightest is the match between the brand values of a programme and a TV Network, the harder it is for another network to appropriate their brand equity. I’ll exemplify this.

Dexter Promo on Showtime

Take Dexter, for example. A drama series about a pseudo-morally-driven serial killer who works for the Miami police department as a blood spatter analyst. The show has a lot of blood and violence, some sex, and skewed morals that make us suddenly realise we are rooting for a butcher to successfully get away with slaughter. Brilliant, isn’t it? I really enjoy the show, as I often get morally disturbed by it. But see, the thing with Dexter is that it is not the kind of show that could be associated with any network brand. Showtime, the American network which produces the show, surely can do it. Dexter is aired by Showtime, a premium subscription cable channel, which in America they can do pretty much what they want in terms of sexuality and violence. Not only that, the show is very innovative and edgy. From the opening titles to the way it manipulates the audience to sympathise with the lead character, Dexter is pure TV art. Nothing bad for a network that competes head to head with HBO. All these brand attributes of Dexter (innovation, edginess) are transferred to the Showtime brand. The same way The Sopranos did to HBO, as you can read in Rogers et al.'s book and in Cathy Johnson's paper. Other networks are joining the game, like Mad Men’s AMC, which recently launched a show with the same defying moral aspects as Dexter’s called Breaking Bad, a show about a 50 year old chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer and decides to get control of his dull life by smoking pot and cooking crystal meth in order to leave a decent legacy for his soon-to-be-born second child. Genious, innit? However, is the end of family principles the future of TV plots as we know it? My girlfriend finds it too violent and too disturbing. I just don’t mind. For me, it is great TV. The only problem is that now I have to watch it solo on my iphone in the tube, instead of watching it on the bedroom TV set.

Breaking Bad Promo on AMC

Well, back again, programmes transfer brand equity to Networks, just like The Sopranos did to HBO, and Dexter did to Showtime, and Mad Men did to AMC. But the reverse is also true. I believe AMC transferred some brand equity to Breaking Bad, in a sense like “Oh, this is the new show from the same network as Mad Men, let’s check it out!”. At the end of the day, we are looking for shows and networks to exchange good equity in an old fashioned well-planned healthy brand orgy. :)

But let’s get back to the word appropriation. And this too is better understood when exemplified. Follow this trail: Dexter is produced and aired by Showtime Networks. Showtime is owned by the giant CBS Corporation. CBS is a media conglomerate who owns the terrestrial CBS channel. Dexter becomes a big hit in the US. CBS decides to add Dexter to their terrestrial schedule. Now, hold your horses right there. A violent show like Dexter on free-to-air American television? So CBS goes: “Ok, let’s schedule it late after the watershed and every time Dexter raises his scalpel we cut right there and remove the segment with the blade sinking in someone’s face. On top of that, every time Sergeant Doakes tells Dexter ‘I’m watching you motherfucker’ we change it to ‘I’m watching you motherlover’” (I swear to Dawkins CBS did that).

Dexter Promo on CBS: "He's got killer good looks…" - How desperate is this? Blimey!

Bottomline: CBS can get an audience, but they had to butcher the show, killing its most valuable aesthetic appeal, and surely not adding much to the CBS brand in the long run.

Now, take a look at the FX channel in Britain. FX is owned by Murdoch, and Murdoch does not own CBS, nor Showtime (“yet”. Who knows? The old man is hungry.) FX is not premium, nor subscription. It is cable. But hey, here is Britain. And FX pursues the same edginess in content as the American premium channels. Dexter is perfect for the FX’s schedule. So FX buys Dexter, and promotes it with excellency through a viral campaign that gives viewers the chills even before watching the show (Google up Dexter’s Hit List or wait for the post on the subject in this very blog).

So here is the brand equity appropriation I mentioned before. Dexter transfers to FX the same brand values developed by the synergy between Dexter and Showtime. Do you follow? This is different, compared to CBS. Dexter not only drives ratings, but also build brand equity to the FX brand in the long term.

Brand equity appropriation can reach highly creative levels. Mostly in the form of textual appropriation (check Caldwell’s book). I remember watching BBC 1's Breakfast News a few days ago where they showed a whole interview with part of the casting from Channel 4's new reality show The Family. There it is! BBC appropriating Channel 4's text. It may look subtle, but there is some brand equity transfer going on. Am I becoming brand paranoid?

Well, this post ends the series about Brand Equity through Aggregation. Next, I'll talk about building Brand Equity in TV III through Placement.

Have a good week.