Travel & Entertainment

Case Study: Major Cable TV Network

Situation
A major cable TV network had achieved significant success with a targeted, defined, and loyal niche of viewers. The related website, however, was not meeting expectations. Financial expectations required that the website become a source of profits, not just a PR “add-on.” The company’s original strategy of attempting to “bundle” pricing of advertising on its core cable offering with that on its website was proving unmanageable and below expectations.

Solution
We conducted detailed, quantitative research among heavy viewers of the cable network and heavy users of the website. A needs hierarchy for each of these audiences was developed and potential solutions brainstormed. Balancing investment with consumer need, a disciplined priority scheme of recommendations was developed. These recommendations fell under two headings: 1) Making the site more tightly linked to the network, more useful, more preferred by network viewers when they became visitors – that is, enhancing the power of the website and 2) Utilizing the unique capabilities of the net to increase stickiness – focusing on loyalty and length of visit rather than unique visitors. These included much more overt and visible linkage of the website (graphics, features, information, etc.) to the popular TV network, making the most popular and useful portion of the website a “detachable” item that visitors could “append” to their desktop, and adding specific content of interest to heavy cable network viewers.

Results
The site is now much more tightly linked to the cable network. Each upgrade of the graphics, data, etc., of each is overtly tied to that of the other.

Contact John Rosen for more information.