TV Station Marketers Are Up to the Coronavirus Challenge

Its in times of crisis that local broadcasters shine.

The above spot -- in which anchors from different TV stations in the Washington, D.C., market all share the message that We are here for you -- is a perfect example of how local broadcasters are approaching their role in the nationwide coronavirus pandemic.

One of the things that has impressed me the most has been watching the various broadcasters come together like never before, said Dana Feldman, senior VP, marketing and promotions, Sinclair Broadcast Group.

That coming together has taken place across markets and broadcast groups as teams work to keep their stations on the air while informing and reassuring their viewers.

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Doing that was initially challenging, as employees had to quickly move from their in-station set-ups to work-from-home situations across the country. For broadcasters, working from home is no more casual than working from TV stations because their critical mission of staying on the air and serving the public at all costs remains the same.

But that's why TV stations were uniquely prepared to quickly make the drastic switch. Many TV station teams have found themselves working in emergency conditions, as a result of fires, floods, hurricanes and now, a pandemic.

We have always focused first on serving our communities and our marketing has always gone in that direction, said Feldman. With the virus, we of course had to transition over to the latest coverage. Obviously, we had to put some projects aside and make sure we emphasized all the ways people could get the latest information, whether that's on air, online or over our apps.

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Early in March, we started daily meetings with our staff to prepare them, said John Kukla, VP of creative services at Fox-owned KDFW/KDFI Dallas-Fort Worth. We also put into place what would need to be done if we all had to leave the building and we couldn't produce from home. We made sure there were generic spots on the logs and we gave alpha control a list of evergreen spots. We were trying to think ahead for both the best- and worst-case scenario.

Once station teams were set up at home, they started instituting new communications protocols jumping on daily video calls, and so forth.

A lot of it comes down to teamwork. In an age where you can't physically be with your team, you have to learn to rely on people in new ways, said Meredith Conte, VP, consumer and ad-sales marketing, Tegna. For us at Tegna, the partnership between the marketing team and the technology team [that has allowed us to take] advantage of the tech stack has been vital. Whether it's Adobe or a cloud storage solution or stock footage or a library music partner, all of those partnerships have become vitally important.

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While communication between employees on station teams grew more frequent, so did communication between groups as they created spots that could be used in markets across the country.

One thing that's been very helpful is the sharing from station to station, said Conte. At Tegna, we spend a lot of time, even outside of this situation, making sure our marketers feel they are part of a collective. Even if you are in Denver, you have access to creative coming out of Washington, D.C. That culture of sharing has always been strong but I would say it's even stronger now.

We've always had a promo-site share, said Feldman. The sharing is just happening much more because of the urgency.

KDFW has gone a step further and created relevant spots for Warner Bros.' off-network run of The Big Bang Theory that the station gave to Warner Bros. to make available for stations across the entire country that air the show, whether owned by Fox or not.

To that end, almost as soon as TV station marketers had gotten themselves set up at home, they began changing up their stations' branding and marketing messages.

We started our messaging at the end of February when we were just hearing things to say that whatever happens, we're here for you. Just a general we're your news station' kind of thing, said Kukla. That morphed into a message of we don't know what's going to happen next but we're here for each other.' Our message has always been Fox 4 Here for You. That's been our touchstone for the past four years, so we've actually morphed it to become Here With You.'

We had to shift our messaging we had to flip almost our entire library of campaigns to meet the needs of the consumer today, said Daniel Meyers, marketing director at Tegna's WGRZ Buffalo. The worst thing you can do during any campaign is look irrelevant.

That change has included everything from the messaging to the overall brand look.

We don't want to be scaring audiences, said Conte. We stripped our coronavirus coverage of a blaring bright red and went with a softer blue palette. We have branded our coverage as facts not fear.' This is not a time to scare audiences this is a time to reassure and to inspire confidence.

While TV station marketers were doing all of that, they also found that there was more demand for their services. The pandemic has forced many advertisers to reevaluate their goals and the timing of their messages, so they have stopped advertising for the moment. That has resulted in marketers needing to fill more on-air inventory.

Local teams have to think about their promo breaks a lot differently today than they ever have, said Conte. They might have more extended breaks or they may have shorter breaks, and they may not have access to the look-live shots they are used to. They may have to fill more breaks, and may have more inventory at the

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