The host did an adequate job serving up soft-ball questions to a business owner with "an exciting story to tell" about business back here on our planet. I don't know how often they segue from Shatner's intro by intoning his fictional extraplanetary travels, but I saw it twice in the reel.
Two or three oddities worth mentioning. A big TV sits on the presenters's desk. Not a sleek new TV, but a big rounded model like my grandmother's. Cut from intro on TV, to the studio. A bank of video screens stands just behind Doug Llewellyn obscured by screen of translucent glass. First it looks like breaking news. Then it looks like shelves of TVs behind a shower curtain. Camera two looks across the host's right shoulder toward stage right when he interviews a doctor, entrepreneur, or other self-promoter. After all these years looking at guests in a chair stage left (witness Carson, everyone else), it feels wrong and undercuts the "credibility" message of the program.
The prose is fulsome with assertions provided by the interviewee. The questions are lobbed with enthusiasm. The answers succinct and as colorful as the business owner. Some, not so much.
Second, Bert Tenzer. This guy, in some connection with Shatner, made a deal with studios to get their back list movies onto Betamax (yes, back then) and then showed franchisees how to set up a video store. Concede it: way ahead of his time. No doubt "2000 Years Later" was required inventory, one of only three productions Tenzer created himself. Released in '69, the New York Times called it "perhaps 2000 years too early."
The old guy appears on camera in the reel: white haired, a little Parkinsonian, unctuous about
his show and his resume. It was hard to tell, but he appeared to be wearing a Nehru jacket. Still. He is The Man who got this rolling, but it was difficult to understand how it works.
Third, the business. After 9/11, Shattner, Tenzer and their people - and I'm piecing this together from what the producers have told me - thought that the best way to strike back at terrorism was to promote the small businesses that were hit hard in the economic downturn and would be the next wave of growth and opportunity. They committed three non-profit years to cover these stories, and unexpected revenue keeps it operating today. Apparently big companies call and want to feature a product from one of their innovative divisions. KAS charges a premium and these segments fund a slug of additional shows about companies like mine.
I hate being sold, so I felt I had to give a pretty darn good reasons for not buying. I said that to use these promo pieces you had better have:
- a story that taps into the emotions in the amygdala (the most primitive part of the brain),
- know your buyer (and get this to all of them to get a return on your $15,850)
- ABG (Always Be Growing)
In my case, the story is not emotional; it's tactical. I partner with smart people and good companies. The buyer does not have common characteristics anymore. Finally, the growth that interests me is not in scale and scope, but greater expertise, which translates into more value per dollar billed.
KAS and Heartbeat of America is not shifty-Hollywood, as I thought. If you've got a promotional plan and a clear, single message for all your buyers, this probably isn't a bad way to go. But it's not for the likes of independent consultants. Not this one.
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