Schumi

Jan 31, 2008 3:16am

Summary of Fan Promotion Efforts from the T-minus 14 and Counting Planning Meeting In Jeritopia

Here’s the summary of the fan promotion efforts discussed at the Tuesday (1/29) Season 2 chat in Jeritopia. Absolutely incredible turnout - thanks for everyone for pulling together all the ideas we’d been talking about for the last few months. This summary is a compilation of all the ideas suggested by everyone in the chat - I’m just the scribe. Kudos to all.

The Salty Scoop

  • Everyone should be sure to read Jericho Executive Producer Jon Turteltaub’s recent post on The Salty Scoop. Very inspirational. (note: the CBS Jericho site is currently being updated - and the Salty Scoop has temporarily disappeared)

To Our Fans:

This is Jon Turteltaub, Executive Producer, and I’m finally posting after all that has happened. Like everyone else, I have been completely overwhelmed and impressed with the campaign you led to save the show. It wasn’t just your passion, but your persistence that paid off. Last summer, I got a call from CBS saying they were being overrun with emails, phone calls, and peanuts. Then they asked me if I would help them to make it all go away. I pretended that my phone was dying and that I couldn’t hear a word. Eventually, I suggested what everyone suggested… PUT THE SHOW BACK ON!

After a lot of deliberating at the highest levels, CBS realized that the show that they themselves loved was more of a success than the research had led them to believe. So here we are with seven new episodes that start airing on February 12th. And I can honestly tell you, these are the best seven episodes we’ve made. (Except for the two I directed in season one, of course!) The show keeps getting better, mostly because we have listened to all of you… trying to give you more of what you love and less of what you didn’t. So this season of Jericho is 100% dedicated to all of you. This is YOUR show. We made it for you. And we hope our work is worthy of the support you have given us.

Now if each of you can find two or three million friends to watch it, we’ll be around for a long time.

Jon

The CBS Morning Show

  • Kricka has volunteered to head into Manhattan to stand outside the CBS Morning Show with a sign promoting Jericho, probably sometime next week. She’d love company. Anyone who wants to try and join her should contact her at Radio Free Jericho.

Flyers & Postcards

  • Anything you are going to mail, get it together and out probably by the beginning of next week.
  • Pieces you are going to distribute by hand - you might want to wait until the weekend before the premiere, as people have a short attention span and will probably only remember the flyer for a few days.
  • Flyers, postcards and such should have both the day (Tuesday) and the date 2/12 as most people relate to the day easier in their minds than the date.
  • Prime locations for posting & distribution: parking lots; public notice boards in grocery stores, laundromats, etc.; doctor offices, vets, dentist, hairdresser - just be sure wherever you leave them that it is ok for you to be doing so.
  • Don’t forget - your car is rolling advertising
  • Some items currently available for use:
  • As more flyers become available, they will be posted in a central location at JerichoLives, so people don’t have to fish them out of board threads, or other links to them will be provided.

Viewing Parties

  • Send out your invitations (lone out your DVDs too with them if you need to catch people up)
  • Don’t forget, parties don’t just have to be in your living room - local bars are great candidates too
  • Sniper101 reported in “there’s a bar in Concord, NC—Steve and Mike’s Place that’s going to have a viewing party, set up by Moonshadow posting a flyer there”
  • If you do set up a public viewing party or hear of one, let your local media and/or CBS affiliate know
  • See if your local newspaper’s web site has a place where event notices can be placed

Social Networking Sites (Myspace, facebook, livejournal, yahoo groups, Hey!Nielsen, etc….)

  • Use whatever broadcast application vehicle included on those sites to get people pumped up (bulletins on myspace, writing on wall on facebook, write opinions & comments on H!N, etc…)
  • Be sure we are talking ABOUT the show and not just the campaign to save the show. People want to hear what it is about Jericho that made you fall in love with the show to the extent you would fight to save it
  • There is plenty of stuff to send messages out about (premiere press release, all the promo videos, post in the Salty Scoop, etc…)
  • If not already doing so, send messages now to all your friends and family members to which your profile is connected on these sites - space them out over the next few days.
  • Hit them a day or so before the premiere to remind them to watch
  • Then again after the episode airs: did they watch? do they have questions (especially new fans who might have missed some of season 1)? did they like it? email CBS audience services & let them know. if they missed it - watch on innerTube/onDemand or get from amazon/iTunes
  • If you can - try to support the fans promoting over on Hey!Nielsen. The minimum you need to do is go to the Jericho page http://www.heynielsen.com/view/jericho/, leave an opinion and try to react and comment on some of the opinions already left. (This is an excellent time to practice “if you have nothing nice to say, walk away” as negative comments do impact Jericho’s presence there.) Hey!Nielsen is still working out some issues, but it is yet another way for us to spread the good vibes about Jericho.
  • Make sure your sig on any board you go to has a Jericho banner and the date in it.

Circulate your DVD

  • Anyone you’ve introduced to Jericho still behind on season 1? There’s still time to catch them up by sitting them down with a disc or two
  • If you’re travelling with a laptop, take your DVDs or have your downloaded versions of the episodes readily available to share. Long bus rides, stranded in airports, hey even a long dryer cycle at the laundromat is long enough to get someone hooked on an episode - and its a better way to pass the time than staring at the walls.

DIGG

  • Everyone should have a digg account, add their Jericho friends there to their profile, then start shovelling away
  • As Rich told us when he was here for a chat - digg can impact things like google rankings
  • We need all Jericho Rangers out Digging to raise the profile of news articles and blog entries about the show.
  • Excellent DIGG tutorial: http://jerichomonster.blogspot.com/2007/07/digg-tutorial.html

Support each other’s efforts

  • Visit the various Jericho blogs. Leave nice comments - they perk up the blogger and they show others visiting how much we all love Jericho
  • Everyone doesn’t need to agree all the time or play in the same sandbox. There is room for everyone and every place. But we must be kind to each other, and avoid conflicts.
  • And be understanding - not everyone can do everything. Contribute how you are best able.
  • GREAT IDEA: Nightbird is going to use the “8 Random Things Game on some other non-Jericho sites and post about it, linking back to Jericho Junction or another Jericho site as an example of how the game is played
  • Amy Vernon at Remote Access has agreed to blog daily on Jericho
  • If you don’t like someone, or some thread, or some board - go elsewhere
  • If you don’t like a blogger - and you can’t get past that - don’t read it.
  • There are a lot of issues in our fandom, but this is about the show: NO SHOW, NO FANDOM (well not in the sense any of us would like to see)
  • CINGRAMAOL: “I think we stand a good chance of getting a Season 3 if we can all fight together instead of each other”
  • We all just have to have one goal: SEASON 3 

So that’s the summary. These were just the ideas discussed in the Jeritopia planning meetings each week and pulled all together on 1/29. There are a lot of other great promotional efforts underway and you can read about them on any of the Jericho message boards.

I used to close the daily campaign update post with a quote and it was a lot of fun thinking up a new one each time. So I thought I’d do that again here. The one I’ve selected I think is very appropriate to our efforts and was actually pucked from the signature of one of the Jericho Rangers (twister):

AUDENTIS FORTUNA IUVAT
(Fortune Favors the Bold)

We did this once.
We can do it again.
We just have to work together.

-schumi

(huge thanks to MAYBEI for taking such great notes for me during the meeting)

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