Should NBC “brand” a mass murderer’s tapes?
From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:
There’s been a pointed debate over whether NBC, and subsequently other broadcasters, should have blanketed the airwaves with the Virginia Tech shooter’s home movies and photos. What struck me, though, was that NBC apparently insisted on branding what amounted to the killer’s media kit as their own.
If you watch the videos and photos on CNN or ABC or anywhere else but on NBC you’ll see there’s a little NBC network logo affixed to the image, much like you might see on a clip from Meet the Press or any other network show. The mass murderer ‘gave’ it to NBC. So they own it. And any other network that shows it has to credit NBC by showing the NBC logo.
Given the slaughter and agony tied to these tapes, I would have thought the execs at NBC would have freed this questionable material into the public domain rather than claiming intellectual property rights to it as they might any other NBC production.
A related discussion, quoting various media sources, is found on Pete Ellertsen’s media blog.
Where is NBC’s “social brand”?
Since this is a deeply social tragedy, on so many levels, an NBC privatizing brand strategy seems way out of place. It clashes with the event, and our reactions to it. What good does it do NBC? It’s out of sync, and it certainly marks NBC as standing apart from the social media that contributed so much to recording the events of that sad day. What’s needed is not a privatizing brand but an NBC “social brand” that raises NBC to a position of leadership in dealing with the tragedy.
The brand must rise to the occasion
In other words, the brand must rise to the occasion, rather than fit the occasion to the brand. By proudly planting its peacock on the rantings of a disturbed mind, NBC shows that it still has a lot of climbing to do.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:20 am
I very much agree with you. I think that what NBC did was not only wrong, but very troubling. I can’t imagine an executive meeting to decide on this issue.
If you come think of it as “hard,cold, money-making business”, I guess I can see why they did it, it does make sense…. but in this times where people are turning to people, and interacting in more social ways… in light of a tragedy like this one NBC should have taken the high road and put their brand in a human context.
They might have made millions of bucks out of this, but the damage they’ve done to many American families, viewers, and to their brand (perhaps in the future) has no price tag on it.
Good Post,
Ron E.
http://brandcurve.com
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:52 pm
very much agreed…
I wonder how relevant any of the three networks are socially.
April 27th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Funny - if the logo mark didn’t play the role of stamping ownership on the images, it would have a very negative impact on NBC. Imagine we replace the NBC logo with the Coke logo. Would Coke like that?
When I was in Tokyo I came across a Coke store that sold Coke stuff: shoes, jackets, shirts, trousers, hats - you name it, they had it. I thought it would be fun to make a serial killer movie and dress the psycho head to foot in Coke.
I wonder how NBC would feel if we were to re-brand all atrocious images with their logo. ‘This genocide was brought to you by NBC.’
May 1st, 2007 at 5:51 am
I guess somewhere in NBC’s mind they are thinking that they, the intermediary, are more important than the customer, who in this case is the rest of the nation. Not a good way to build a brand.