BACKGROUND / CHALLENGE:
NBCUniversal Media is an American media company owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan.
In the Boston and New England region, NBC Universal operated three-channel brands, First, NBC10, a so-called “O&O” (or owned-and-operated) television station serving Boston, Massachusetts, United States that is licensed to Nashua, New Hampshire. Second, Telemundo Boston, the local Hispanic channel, and third, NECN, a 24-hour news channel serving the New England region.
NBCUniversal was seeking ways to understand the value of each brand to its viewers and find ways to capture synergies across the channels including the way the channels shared content and news scoops and exclusives.
NBCUniversal asked us to create a unique brand positioning for its unique ‘triopoly’ of channels not only to enable each brand to stand apart but also to identify commonalities and areas of synergy.
SOLUTION:
Our team spent time immersing ourselves in each brand, reviewing existing branding efforts and advertising and identifying customer needs and attitudes from existing research. We spent 3 days in the Boston area at channel headquarters to conduct interviews with 20 which included representatives from each of the three brands. We also spoke to senior editorial staff and on-air talent including NBC10 news anchors Phil Lipof, Shannon Mulaire and Latoiya Edwards as well as meteorologist Pete Bouchard all of whom were passionate advocates of the work we were doing since they all believed that the brand was unclear and unfocused.
Our three-month engagement concluded with a unique brand positioning and narrative for each brand which was presented, refined and approved not only by a range of senior and mid-level employees but also by corporate marketing decision-makers at NBCUniversal HQ in New York. The brand definition for Telemundo was created and written in both Spanish and English in order to create maximum appeal and impact.
OUTCOME:
The new brand definition and positioning work had a galvanizing effect which brought together the three channels and united both the business and marketing side of the channels with the news and editorial side. Commenting afterwards on the project, Robert Poulton, NBC10’s head of marketing said “We can attribute OUR success directly to the groundwork WANT set. I wouldn’t have seen all the challenges we faced without their assistance, and their contributions were instrumental to our marketing.”