Strike up the brand!
PBS tuning up its image as Carole Feld moves on

Originally published in Current, March 20, 2000

By Karen Everhart Bedford

Carole Feld, PBS's advocate of branding and promotion since 1992, recently recalled her earliest days at Braddock Place, when she discovered—to her surprise—that PBS was not a network, but an association of a couple hundred jealously independent public television stations.

This was after she had taken the job. "What? It's not a network? It looks like a network. It acts like a network."

Feld had worked for HBO and Tri-Star Pictures before joining PBS, and had a lot to learn about public TV, but also a lot to teach. She did a lot of preaching. Preaching the values and virtues and strengths of the PBS brand, and how beneficial it is to local stations to attach their identity to it through cobranding.

"I feel like I am the poster child for branding, and my successes are really the result of my staff and people in the system that have really gotten it, and championed branding at their stations," she said. Feld left PBS last week to join an online financial information firm, The Motley Fool, as branding v.p.

"She brought a level of sophistication and expertise to the discipline of branding and communications that the system really was in need of," commented Barbara Goen, v.p. of communications for KCET in Los Angeles. "We've benefited tremendously from the wisdom, energy and passion she has brought to branding. She taught us the term, what it means and what it can mean."

Not everyone was receptive to Feld's message. She had a tough job to win over station leaders who wanted their viewers to think of their stations first, not PBS. And she eventually came to agree with those who didn't like the tagline, "If PBS won't do it, who will?" PBS now plans to drop the line, and is developing a new positioning campaign.

Reflecting on her years at PBS during a recent interview, Feld downplayed the resistance to her efforts to strengthen PBS's brand identity. Close to 90 percent of stations are now cobranding with PBS "in some way," an indication to her that cobranding has won acceptance.

"People have recognized the fact that they have an incredible brand name at their disposal, which is PBS," said Feld. "When I first came here, we were not allowed to be known as 'PBS,' it had to be 'public television,' To me, it was like being known as 'cola' instead of 'Coca-Cola.' People have now accepted the fact that PBS is a strong brand. If they can find a way to connect it to their local brand, they're in a much more competitive place than they would be without it."

A Young & Rubicam study tracking PBS's brand assets measured growth in three of four pillars that support a brand — knowledge, esteem, relevance — from 1993 to 1999. PBS was already near the 100th percentile, and remaining steady, on differentiation, the fourth quality that measures a brand's strength. The ad agency tracks the strengths of media and lifestyle brands with a survey research tool known as the "Brand Asset Valuator."

Shortly before Feld took her new job at The Motley Fool, she and her staff initiated a major re-think of PBS's positioning and promotion strategies. Last month, PBS retained Fallon McElligott, a Minneapolis-based ad agency, to create a new tagline and positioning campaign and work on paid media planning and buying. Judy Braune, v.p. of PBS strategy and brand management, is leading the effort.

The tagline developed by Hal Riney & Partners in the early 1990s, "If PBS won't do it, who will?" spoke up for public TV at a time when Republican leaders in Congress were trying to "zero-out" federal funding for public broadcasting. The tagline "really served its purpose five years ago, and was recognized by people who wanted to defeat us," said Feld. "PBS is still true to that line, but it takes more explaining when there's so many choices out there that are trying to claim that they are the same or better than we are, which they are not."

PBS's competitors nevertheless do such "a great job branding themselves, that we have to communicate what is the viewer benefit of watching PBS," Feld comments. "It's more about the benefit to the viewer instead of who we are. Five years ago we really needed to talk about who we were." The "Best of" positioning campaign ("History's best on PBS"), adopted to promote its PBS genre programming, also is under reconsideration.

"What we're hoping to do is simplify, simplify, simplify. We want to come up with a tagline that stations can also adopt, and we want to simplify our messages. When we do a tune-in event, we'd like to figure out a way also to tie it into the positioning."

PBS also intends to revamp its media buying strategy to invest more airtime and money in promoting "pop-out" programs. "What we've realized is that more than ever we have to focus our resources for greatest impact," she comments. "We need to promote fewer programs and put more weight behind them."

She points to Discovery, which spent $3 million to promote "Raising the Mammoth," and drew a 6 rating, "one of their highest ratings ever." HBO spent $10 million promoting The Sopranos. PBS's "pop-out" programs, the two shows backed each season with promotions that cost $1 million, now have trouble breaking through.

"We don't have much money, so we can't spread it out so thinly. Every day it's taking more and more to break through." To develop firmer criteria for selecting "pop-out" programs, PBS will consult with its Communications Advisory Committee and programmers.

"My prediction, and what I hope will happen, is that we won't be sending out a million promos that stations will have to go through. There will be a certain number of promos, and they'll be good," Feld continued. "The whole idea is to make it easier for stations, focus our resources, and promote the good stuff."

 

	.	To Current's home page
	.	Later news: PBS unveils new positioning slogan, "Stay curious," June 2000.

Web page posted June 24, 2000
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