More pointers from Copywrite,Ink on Promotion of Jericho

The article that Rich of Copywrite,Ink posted today Copywrite, Ink.: Promoting Jericho: Fan Buzz is a great way to open the floor for a discussion concerning some issues we need to be addressing in this campaign - fragmentation and duplication of efforts.

Now, I think everyone who did anything for the campaign deserves to be given recognition, and a hug. We have had so many people doing wonderful artwork (rubberpoultr and dangrabbit to name but two) and leg work (Susandavis2 from the forums took 3000 of Dangrabbit's fliers to the Dover Downs during the Save Jericho Campaign, and put out each one! You rock Susan :-) I can not even begin to name everyone who did that one special thing that in total helped to save our show. I hope you all know how much your efforts meant to the cause as a whole. That said, we have so many people doing essentially the same things, all disguised under different headings. Too many people doing the same job is exhausting our efforts to be effective. If there are some who wish to work on the wiki, then so be it. But to have 5 people all taking the wiki apart one after another is wasted time and effort.

I was happy to see that there were threads made for each area that needs attention, but then those threads got full of so many ideas that were worded differently but were all about the same items. What is needed is a clear idea of what is has to be done, *for instance with on line content* and more importantly what type of input we really have.

The job of getting new viewers and some how magically finding the Nielsen families as well, has fallen to us. We (the fans) need that same fire and organization of the Save Jericho Campaign, which at this point is not prominently displayed in the ranks on the forums.And some folks are getting upset if their ideas are not getting as many hoorahs as others are. Splitting into groups is counter productive and will only use up the time we do have with no results, and if that happens we will be asking ourselves was the ego worth the loss of Jericho?

We are also lacking a "solid message targeting new viewers". There is another blog I have taken to reading off and on in the past month Quick Sprout, which discusses branding of a product or ones blog. In my opinion, it is a branding issue we face now. What is the message that we want the new viewers to have in their minds when they consider watching Jericho? Bombs falling on America? Some at the forums think that is too reminiscent of 9/11, and while I do not agree with that I do think we are missing an important piece of this promotional puzzle. Do I have any ideas? Not yet, but I will admit that I do think about it a lot and hope we can quickly come to a consensus over what our message, or our brand will be.

As someone I talked to today about the show said, it is not a who done it, so much as a what if type of show. Jericho was about the bombs for all of one show, after that it was a great sociological study on group interaction. The best thing about Jericho is it gives each and everyone of us who watch it the chance to play out this scenario in the safety of our homes. A trial run for the day we all hope never comes, but may come. And which would you rather, a 30 second commercial from Homeland Security telling you to stock water and duct tape, or a weekly primer in the various events we might face? Which teaches better, a news piece outlining the failings of our borders or seeing someone you feel connected to in someway having to all of a sudden kill the chickens, not buy them at Wal-Mart?

It is this type of conversation we have to be prepared to have with a new potential viewer. Ask yourselves this, what if you had the last Nielsen family needed to push Jericho into winning position for a full return for 2008, right in front of you? What would your presentation be? Put your ideas of what Jericho means to you down on paper, read them out loud. (It makes a total difference to hear what you wrote, it presents totally different than when its on paper, trust me).

And as Rich mentions, the protest was easy to get going, but what do we need to do now in order to bring home the gold?

Just my thoughts on the subject :-)