... And Now a Word to our Sponsors
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | ... And Now a Word to our Sponsors |
| Creator: | Stephanie Wiltse |
| Date(s): | February 1989 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Beauty and the Beast (TV) |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
... And Now a Word to our Sponsors is an essay by Stephanie Wiltse, editor of Pipeline.
It was printed in v.2 n.2 of that zine.
The essay was followed by a detailed list of sponsors complied by three fans.
Some Topics Discussed
- paying attention to commercials and writing sponsors may help keep Beauty and the Beast (TV) on the air
- avoid making your letters sound like it came via an organized fan campaign, as those are useless
- fans and power, or lack there of
From the Essay
Granted it's hard to appreciate the 'Noid when he suddenly makes a rude appearance at the worst moment, but it's the pizza he's selling ...that you buy ...that pays for the advertising ...that pays the network ...that buys the episode that ... that Witt-Thomas offers for sale.
Unlike ads in a newspaper or newspaper, where the publisher can say with certainty a product's message will be seen by X number of subscribers, plus X number of newsstand readers; the network has only the ratings. Accurate or
not, those numbers are the closest thing they've got to a specific indication of how many people will see a product's ad. That's not to say other factors don't contribute to programming decisions, as a recent study in the Winter '88 "Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media" pointed out, "Numbers alone may be misleading in the case of programs generating a key demographic audience. .. A myriad of non-ratings factors influence programmers..." listed among them were "...pressures from corporations and advertisers..."
Whether we as individual consumers can affect this decision making is by no means certain, but it is worth a try. Here is a list of the makers (they hope) of the cereal in your clipboard, the remedies in your medicine cabinet, and the car in your garage. It is also a portrait of you through what the advertising experts think you will buy. Here is one of B&B's hidden strengths ...and the sponsors think they know you well enough to bank on it.
As with the networks, simply writing to an address below and saying, "Thank you for sponsoring Beauty and the Beast," may actually be counter-productive because it will have 'campaign' and therefore, 'relative few' written all over it. Again, the idea is to be indicative of a majority of millions rather than a minority of loyal thousands.
Ok, I hear you, your letters to this editor speak of discouragement and frustration — of never getting replies, of never knowing even whether your missives axe read. The list below was compiled from 3 different sources... included companies that "responded enthusiastically" and/or with coupons worth $$$, well, ¢¢¢.
But it's not for the replies that we write, just as there can be no set wording for approaching a sponsor with our albeit ulterior motive of soliciting their support.
You know, I think you will even enjoy watching the commercials when you look at them with a view toward making comments.