When The Jay Leno Show premiered on September 14th it meant former late night king Jay Leno would be moving to and competing for ratings in the competitive prime-time ratings sweepstakes. To date, reception and viewership has been less than stellar for Leno. Ratings are lower than expected while the show has lost out to re-runs on other networks. This past Monday marked the lowest of lows as only 4.6 million people tuned in.
The Leno show brings us to the question; do Americans simply not want to watch or care about talk show style shows in prime-time? Do we love our dramas and sitcoms that much?
The Jay Leno Show needs to start by engaging with fans and recognizing that it is a much different audience then the late night crowd. To attract viewers, people need to be presented a reason to watch the show over their favorite CBS drama they have been a loyal follower of for years. A few short, un-captivating ads running throughout the evening as people settle in after a long day at the office do not do the trick. The Leno show needs to reach people while they are still in the office, while leveraging the popularity of nightly celebrity guest or musical act to draw their fans to Jay for the night.
Zeta Marketing Solutions to Increase Ratings and Popularity of The Jay Leno Show
- Contests are known to foster engagement; create a contest where Twitter followers can Tweet their best joke or one-liner to @nbcjay
- A winning joke will be selected by the show’s staff and read by Leno on the next night’s show and will be based on entertainment value and creativity
- Leno will mention the Twitter user before reading their joke
- Contestants must be followers of @nbcjay so they can be notified after the previous night’s show that their joke won in the event they did not watch (tweeters who entered jokes will still (hopefully) watch that night’s show to see if their joke was selected)
- Promote the contest through the many NBC affiliated Twitter handles as well as the NBC Web site to increase the chances the campaign goes viral
- At the end of each month; the top Twitter use submitted joke will be selected. The Jay Leno Show will fly the lucky winner in for an all expenses paid, overnight stay in the Los Angeles area culminating with passes to a taping of the show
- The joke of the month will be voted on by Twitter followers and fans of the show, voting will be hosted by the shows official site with video clips available of Jay reading the top 5 jokes of the month as selected by NBC
- The winners will be acknowledged during the taping of the show and shown on air during the primetime broadcast
- A winning joke will be selected by the show’s staff and read by Leno on the next night’s show and will be based on entertainment value and creativity
- The Jay Leno Show should use email marketing to demographically target people based on the nights guest/ musical act
- Before the show; NBC should acquire lists based around fans of the celebrity or artist due on the show that night
- Purchase the list from the celebrities fan site or use a 3rd party with relevant list demographics
- Send an email the day of the show reminding them that X celebrity will be appearing or performing tonight
- Make sure to include the celebrity in the subject line to increase interest and optimize open rates
- Utilize a creative that follows best practices with image to text ratio to aesthetically appeal to the reader while offering the necessary information regarding the show
- Before the show; NBC should acquire lists based around fans of the celebrity or artist due on the show that night
- Have the creative click through to thejaylenoshow.com home page
Note: An increase in overall traffic to the Leno home page will generate greater advertising revenue to offset the additional costs of email marketing - Use a similar concept for targeted banner advertising on Facebook
- By taking advantage of Facebook’s unique targeting capabilities; NBC can target ads to a selected demographic that might watch a specific night due to the appearance of a favorite celebrity/ artist
- Example: John Cusack is due to appear on the show Friday, October 30th
- Target Facebook profiles that list Cusack or some of his popular films (Sixteen Candles, High Fidelity,etc.) in their profile
- Have a banner ad highlighting Cusack’s upcoming appearance on the show be displayed
- NBC should use SEM to purchase keywords related to guests of the show; especially if that celebrity has been in the news a lot recently and is a high volume search term
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Leno’s show is done in Burbank, CA not NY.
Thanks for the heads up will make the appropriate change