the learning channel

							The Martin Agency

The Learning Channel (TLC)
GOLD

PRODUCT BRAND IN THE MARKETPLACE FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS

“Life Lessons” What the 2006 Awards Co-Chairs Say: By thinking outside the traditional demographics of most networks, this paper demonstrated brilliant understanding of its target audience. The idea from planning that re-framed TLC from a network that teaches to a brand that shares life’s lessons with its audience, informed groundbreaking creative and engagement ideas. What the Third-Round Judges Say: A showcase of how great strategic thinking can truly affect a brand at multiple levels. These guys not only inspired the core brand platform but also its delivery through multiple channels and programming decisions for the network’s future. A long way from just consumer insights ... great thinking.— Dominico Vitale, Managing Partner, Head of Brand Strategy, kirshenbaum bond + partners. AGENCY: The Martin Agency CLIENT: The Learning Channel (TLC) BRAND: The Learning Channel (TLC) PLANNING TEAM: Emily Collier, Strategic Planner; Katherine Wintsch, VP, Senior Strategic Planner VUC ADCENTER STUDENTS (not pictured): Alexis Brandolini, Barrie Leimer, Joanna Chopski

What the client says: The Life Lessons effort is more than an ad campaign.It's a creative platform that has helped define and focus our network on key target insights. The result -- a powerful brand experience and nine consecutive months of double-digit, year over year ratings growth. And we're just getting started.—Derek Koenig, SVP Marketing

Summary
Heading into the end of 2005, TLC’s ad sales were down, ratings were down and viewers were emotionally disconnected from the network. With the heydays of Trading Spaces long gone, viewers and ad buyers weren’t sure what the network stood for anymore. TLC was looking for a new identity. Well-defined communication objectives challenged us to resonate with a life-stage, rather than standard demos, and pushed us to create a strategic platform that would define the network as something more meaningful than a television channel. Based on insightful human truths, the Life Lessons campaign took TLC and the entire broadcast category down a road less traveled. When other networks were touting their celebrities as heroes, we touted our viewers. When other brands were overly serious when talking about their audience “growing up,” we made fun of it. The campaign revitalized TLC and proved that listening and learning are boring. It’s much more fun to live and learn. As a result, the new brand positioning not only served as the foundation for the most successful advertising campaign in the network’s history, but also became a powerful platform for extended communications and future programming decisions.

The Situation
Since 2002, TLC had been unable to recreate the remarkable success experienced with the launch of Trading Spaces and subsequently, the DIY craze among women. As a result, TLC lost affinity among important viewers and media buyers. Its unique position in the marketplace was no longer evident and a ratings slump quickly ensued. TLC insisted we take a different approach than typically pursued within the category. They challenged our team to resonate with a life-stage, rather than traditional network demos. In addition, they pushed us to come up with a strategic platform that would define the network as something greater and more significant than a television channel. Our challenge: Develop a compelling and unifying brand position that would solidify TLC’s position in the marketplace while driving affinity among viewers and ad buyers. 64
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The Learning Channel (TLC)

Audience Insights: Embrace Their Duality
After analyzing market trends and competition from other cable networks, TLC determined that 28- to 42-year-olds were underserved within the category. Men and women who had outgrown the antics of MTV, but weren’t quite ready to retire to A&E. TLC recognized that in order to resonate with this audience, we had to understand and speak to their life-stage, not their age range. Without pause, we gathered these individuals in a room and initiated the dialogue. We conducted an extensive series of ethnographic interviews where we inquired about their lives and values, rather than just their television sets. Our goal was to uncover unique human truths with the potential to unite them as an audience while simultaneously connecting their value system to TLC’s new primetime programming. We found these individuals knee-deep in a plethora of “firsts”: first home, first child, first marriage, first meaningful career maneuvers, first divorce … first time feeling like a grown-up. An interesting dichotomy and tension emerged when they described how they felt about this time in their lives: their strong desire to grow up juxtaposed with an equal, if not stronger, refusal to grow old. In collaboration with the client, we dubbed this life-stage SLAMBROSIA. Representing a time in life when you’re bombarded with new experiences (SLAM) that are challenging, yet extremely sweet and rewarding (AMBROSIA). Being in the middle of Slambrosia not only defined who these people were, but had significant impact on what they were looking for from TLC. While our Slambrosians admitted they still had a lot to learn from life, they were clearly tired of being told what to do. They were ready to move beyond listening and learning … they were ready to start living and learning. One Slambrosian said it best, “I’m always open to learning, but I’m tired of being taught.” When struggling with pregnancy questions, Slambrosians were more likely to call their girlfriends than their mothers. When looking for tips for buying a new home they went to their peers not their elders. They recognized the fact that times are different today, and the most fruitful advice comes from those experiencing life around them, not ahead of them.

Category Insights: Taking The Road Less Traveled
In order to break away from traditional category conventions and speak to Slambrosians in a unique way, we first had to understand what not to do. We studied the competition intensely and watched a very common and predictable equation emerge:
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The stars of the shows are heroes. They’re always front and center Branding comes in the form of the network logo with the show’s date/time stamp Almost all network advertising ends with an overpromising call to action such as “brace yourself for a killer season.” We determined that our TLC branding efforts needed to embrace three guiding principles in order to stand out from this sea of sameness: Avoid the existing formula at all costs. Be more conceptual. Be more interesting. Include viewers in the equation. Always answer their most pressing question, “What’s in it for me?” Make people laugh. At the end of the day, we’re in the entertainment business. We plastered these ideals on our walls, included them in our creative brief and ensured all work adhered to their spirit. Our ultimate goal was to help viewers develop a clear understanding and affinity for what they would experience each time they came to TLC, not simply what they would see on Tuesday night at 7 PM.

Strategic Platform: An Idea That Unifies the Brand Experience
We knew going into the project that TLC’s programming centered around unscripted shows about real life and real people. However, our Slambrosian insights and deeper understanding of category conventions helped us determine how to serve TLC up in a way that would truly resonate with Slambrosians. TLC is the network that shares life’s lessons with you. This strategy clearly differentiated TLC from its competition. We would share our message, not teach it like A&E. Our offering would be about life, not nature like Discovery. And most important, our message would always be inclusive of our viewers. Our message couldn’t simply be about TLC. It had to be about our viewers and their lives as Slambrosians.

Brand Tonality: Finding a Voice That Resonates
Now that we knew what to say, we needed to determine how to say it. We knew we couldn’t be preachy. We knew we couldn’t make viewers feel like they were going to school. But how far could we go? We knew Slambrosians readily admitted they weren’t perfect. They often found themselves in situations they didn’t know how to handle … and often made a mistake while there. However, rather than beating themselves up, they laughed. Their sense of humor was unmistakable as they “lived and learned” their way through this interesting time of life. 66

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The Learning Channel (TLC)

Most brands take on a very serious air when talking about learning and growing up. We knew that was dead wrong. If we took ourselves too seriously, Slambrosians would assume TLC was for their parents, not themselves. It was time to have a little fun.

Creative Platform: Having Fun At Our Own Expense
Armed with the strategic direction of sharing life lessons with Slambrosians, the creative team came up with the following creative platform: As we travel through life, we collect valuable life lessons along the way. Lessons we show off and share with our friends. Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone had souvenirs of their “Life Lessons Collection?” When thinking about “souvenirs of life moments” that already existed, Hummel figurines first came to mind. However, Hummels were all wrong. They depicted precious and perfect moments that certainly didn’t represent the turbulent times of becoming a grown- up. Not to mention, Slambrosians didn’t collect Hummels; their parents did. Our target audience needed their own figurines. Figurines that: Depicted realistic situations encountered during Slambrosia. The individuals and situations being shown needed to be realistic (husband and wife arguing) not perfect (husband giving his wife a rose). Shared a valuable lesson acquired during Slambrosia. Many of our lessons came directly from our one-on-one interviews with Slambrosians. The figurines needed to share relevant lessons centered around “Slambrosian milestones”— parenting, careers, families, spirituality, home ownership and relationships. Made you chuckle. The goal was to create figurines Slambrosians could not only relate to and learn from, but also laugh at. Figurines and lessons such as these:

When the baby needs changing, remember rock beats scissors; What you do, your kids do; Merlot and e-mail don’t mix; Before getting intimate, turn off the TV.
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Unprecedented Results On All Levels 5
The Life Lessons campaign launched in March of 2006. The results of the campaign surpassed client expectations, igniting excitement among media buyers and planners along the way. TLC’s new brand positioning became so much more than a platform for interesting advertising, it became a rallying cry for Slambrosians, and a filter for all TLC communications and programming.

The results of the campaign surpassed client expectations

In addition to increasing affinity among viewers, the Life Lessons campaign successfully achieved the network’s objective to own 28- to 42-year-olds going through Slambrosia in the minds of media agencies and key advertisers.

5 Source: Independent tracking study (Latitude Research), Ratings from US Networks Research.

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