A Car Drives Ratings, Revenue For KREM

When it comes to giving away prizes in “watch and win” contests, most local TV stations believe cash is king. But in Spokane, Wash. (DMA 73), a car drove ratings, revenue and digital.

“As part of KREM 2’s Project Green, we teamed up with Avista, a local power company, and Toyota to give away a fuel-efficient Rav 4,” says Dan Weig, creative services director of the Belo-owned CBS affiliate. This is the fourth year in a row the station has given away a car. Weig says the consistency of having the contest every year for four years helps build awareness, “so the station doesn’t have to start from scratch each time.”

Win a Rav 4  

Weig says the station was already working with Avista to promote energy-saving tips, but they wanted to make that campaign bigger. “The Toyota people love this idea because of the extra promotion it gives the car,” he says.

The Win a Rav 4 Watch and Win contest was timed to coincide with the station’s May sweeps ratings period. In every KREM newscast, a five-second cluster-buster in the middle of a break gave viewers the word of the day.

Word of the Day

Viewers then went to the station’s website to enter the word of the day for a chance to win the car. Bonus entries could be won by going to a website on energy efficiency set up by Avista and by “liking” KREM 2 News on Facebook.

In May, KREM received more than 2,000 Facebook ‘likes’ that were tied directly to the contest, said Weig.

 “We had more than 100,000 entries, of which 13,000 were unique visitors to KREM’s website,” Weig says. He estimates there are about 420,000 households in the Spokane market.

This year, viewers could get the word of the day by watching any one of KREM daily newscasts. In May 2012, viewers had to watch only the 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts on KREM, which helped increase its 5 p.m. news share 21% and its 6 p.m. share a whopping 42% among adults 25-54.

“We opened it up this year to include all the newscasts to get more viewers. The sweepstakes is a great way to drive sampling from those who may not watch the news. Viewers are enticed to both watch our newscasts and go to our web site,” Weig says.

Rav 4 Winner

KREM news typically ranks first or close to first in the ratings at noon, 5, 6 and 11 p.m., and on the weekends, according to Weig. But he emphasizes that the sweepstakes is just one component to its success. “If you don’t have good content in your news and on your website, the contest alone won’t work.”.

Weig says he knows the contest is very popular with viewers from his ski-lift focus group. When Weig goes skiing and people learn he works at KREM, “they say ‘we love KREM and that Meteorologist Tom Sherry who gives away the cars.’ ”

NOTE: Brandt Dotson, the senior creative services producer at KJRH Tulsa, Okla., wanted me to pass along the following note. You can e-mail Brandt at [email protected].

What is the best way to use Final Cut Pro X in the tight-deadline, chaotic and inconsistent environment that is the TV industry? How have other TV promo editors been successful in adapting the television promo editing workflow for FCPX? As TV editors all know, editing news topicals, image promos, syndicated episodics and sweeps promos all require different processes, approaches and mentalities, and FCPX doesn’t seem to be designed to accommodate either very well. I am trying to find solutions and methods for the best approach in using FCPX in each of these different situations, and have been hitting roadblocks and frustrations.

Market Share by Paul Greeley is all about marketing and promotion at TV stations and appears every Monday. Read other Market Share columns here. If you have some ideas or stories you want to share, please let me know. You can reach Paul Greeley at [email protected] or at 817-578-6324.