Advice on campaign strategies by a successful campaigner

The following advice was proffered on the Save Carson Beckett list by TJ Jeffrey one of the leaders of the group about the following idea http://amireal.livejournal.com/803064.htmland a Save SGA campaign in general. I have posted it here in its entirety because I asked for advice and this is the advice that was given. I should say that TJ Jeffrey (whom I do not know) is not the least bit hopeful of the success of such a campaign.




"It is an interesting idea, however you will be doing EXACTLY what Brad, Scifi & MGM want you to do, giving them a free expensive advert/promotion and nothing more. Plus how long is this going to take? The actors will no doubt shortly be released from their contracts to look for other work, pilot season comes up fast after christmas and movie role hunting will be starting now. Not to mention some series or mini series shoot from October onward. Can anyone see Joe Flanigan, or David Hewlett hanging around for long?

If you're thinking of putting it in Vareity, think again, print is heavily in decline and Variety and many other print publications do not have the influence they did a few years ago. We've seen this in the news with all the massive staff cut backs on all the major publications. This is why we avoided Variety, not worth the cost. We waged a grass roots campaign, which meant innovative ideas that generate press for FREE or at the minimal cost. SCB got MILLIONS in free press, with a campaign budget of around $5-6k TOTAL.

If you are going to do this, look for an online agency. The good thing about this is, if you can generate a story to accompany it, a lot of other news sources (if its the right one...i.e. you could push to find a way to get something on Reuters etc) will pick it up and you get multiple for the price of one. Like buying a substancial banner add on a large influence site, these get MILLIONS of hits.

But Scifi/MGM does not give a crap about the current fanbase, they're looking for a new 'younger demographic'. They're looking for that outdated business model of '18-35' year old males who supposedly have the highest amount of disposable income.

Please dont waste your money, I'd rather see the comic idea of lemons sent to the studio, MGM and scifi which would cause a big disruption. As apposed to this risky waste of money in a time when everyone is hurting from the credit crunch.

You have to think guerilla warfare, stuff thats underground. Like cancelling your scifi subscriptions, SG magazine subs, and anything else that hurts these guys. You can say you dont want to 'hurt' the franchise incase you get no movie or only 1, but as I said, once the actors are out of their contracts, some might choose to say 'so long' and then there is no coming back. Renewal is usual October, I say realistically, thats how long you have. So the only way to put it is 'abandoning the franchise' or more accurately taking your money away from it. As they say 'money talks' in this business, if you want to be heard concentrate on that."

I REALLy do not believe this, because it is different for each campaign, and there is still time, we have roughly a few months til filming of SGA for Season 5 ends, that's why we should act quickly. I really do believe this can work if everyone contributes!

I've been telling you all to act quickly. Has everyone mass emailed yet? If you haven't you better. And don't just ignore the question, answer it. I've already emailed the press on five emails. Same with MGM and Scifi. Come on people!

This is going to sound a bit weird, but I think due to the success of Ark of Truth and Continuum, maybe SciFi and MGM think they can make more money out of us through these movies? If that's the case, then we need to do the OPPOSITE of what they want...

That's exactly what they've admitted. They want to see if these shows have a money spending audience. They know it does so why develop it for tv and let us see it "free" when they can spend the money to make one or two "episodes" and sell it to us for $20 a pop?

Of course it's all about sending free tv... not even free in this case cuz we had to buy cable to get it.... so the cable co's will also feel the hit if we all cancel cable and threaten to if SGA is taken off air.

I know that saving a show is alot more difficult than saving one character of that show. So I'd say TJ's successful campaign was fought on a much smaller battlefield. The show was still there, all they had to do is say "Hey Paul, you want to come back and play Carson a few times a year?"

Here, we have to try to save the show. And if we can't do that then by God they're going to know why the the drastic change in popularity for MGM and SciFi network. I want them to feel it where it hurts them, in the wallet. I want them to feel the pain like they hurt us. They might be in control.. but that doesn't mean we have to take their decisions lying down and being submissive puppets for the conglomerates. WE are the success or faiure of any company... US. The consumer. The viewer. Not them.

They only have an illusion of power because people are so ready to give up the moment ONE guy says "forget it".

Not likely.


John

Oh and yes. I've mass emailed... a dozen times a day actually.

I wrote out a couple versions of my Save Atlantis comments, pasted all the email addies to it and saved it in my Drafts folder.

A few times in the morning I just hit Send, Send, Send... a few times in the afternoon I hit Send, SEnd, Send... a few times overnight since I work the third watch I sit here, as I am now, trying to boost morale, get the word out as much as I can in the quiet hours of pre-dawn and hit Send, Send, Send, Send,Send, Send


How's that?

John

Ok, so like the previous statements, if that's the case and truth of it, then we need to get live ratings up, and dare I say it, it may be an idea not to buy the movie if it ever does come out. That way they may be forced into bringing it back? Is that even possible?

I don't know to be honest.

I have some lemon pics to upload but I don't know how to do that here. Can someone give me a quick instruction please?

John

If its directly on your computer, on you have a URL, use the image on the top of the reply box that looks like a picture with a floppy disc in front of it!

Hello everyone,

just signed up. We had a successful campaign 10 years back to save a show (The Sentinel). We targeted the advertisers with polite mail and email, thanking them for supporting the show and buying their products (someone will need to put up a list of sponsors!). The old site is still up. Maybe we can use some things from there: SOS.

For international fans go and target the television station that shows Atlantis. Be polite, be the unknowing innocent viewer. Ask them whether the cancellation is true. Those TV stations buy the rights for airing it directly from MGM. If they do receive enough mail / email. they certainly will slip it to MGM. ;-)

I put out a press release here in Germany and various TV guides (yes, we have more than only one) are picking it up. Those TV guides are issued weekly and / or bi-weekly.