Jericho Fans: Not Marketers ??

Forgive my small rant today but I feel I have to say it. Did you Jericho fans know that we are not marketers ?

On Thursday I received an email regarding Marketing Daily. It said:

"MEDIAPOST'S MARKETING DAILY WILL CHOOSE a Marketer of the Year, and we invite you to participate. Send us your nominations for marketers who this year showed some guts, pulled off an innovation and/or executed with overall brilliance.

We will select winning marketing executives in all key consumer marketing categories and one overall Marketer of the Year.

So tell us who you think should win, and why.

Send all nominations to Nina Lentini, editor of Marketing Daily, at nina@mediapost.com no later than Friday, Nov. 2.

(It's OK to nominate yourself.)"


The first paragraph simply says a Marketer of the Year will be chosen. The second paragraph mentions "marketing executives." So, I sent Ms. Lentini an email nominating Jericho fans. She quickly responded thanking me.

I mentioned it to some other fans(I don't know how many people saw it) and posted it to my blog Thursday night. On Friday morning Ms. Lentini had left a comment on my blog:

"Hi all. I appreciate your enthusiasm for your show, but, as you are not, in fact, marketers, please don't fill up my e-mail with nominations for Marketer of the Year."

Egads!!! If we're not marketers who is?? I responded:

Nina,
I rspectfully disagree.
"On July 19, 2007 Nina Tassler spoke at the Television Critics Association semi-annual summer meeting. CBS executives, including Tassler, said it is up to fans to encourage word of mouth for the show. The network won't provide any specific directions or marketing materials, since that discourages word of mouth and viral marketing."

"To gain a better understanding of consumer marketing, I decided to go to the source, says Richard Becker of Copywrite Ink. While there are forums, Web sites, e-newsletters, and several other fan-generated promotional efforts associated with Jericho, the television show resurrected by CBS after one of the most convincing and well-publicized cancellation protests in history, bloggers tend to be on the front lines."


The fans of Jericho, through a "word of mouth" Internet campaign sent over 20 TONS of Peanuts to CBS!! (that's about 8 million peanuts!!) - not to mention all the cards, emails, letters and phone calls.

We raised enough money to take out a full page color ad in Variety Magazine.

Numerous videos were made and spread like wildfire.

And through our efforts, our show was renewed!

No, we're not marketers! See here.


"I think we need to send her emails now instead telling her that if we are NOT marketers then she needs to send a letter to CBS every day telling them of our marketing disqualification until they start marketing their own programs!", says one Jericho fan.


Another fans states, "Marketers comes in all forms now a days. Take for instance, affiliate marketing. Done online by thousands of regular people like myself who do not work for some big ad agency.

Are Jericho fans marketers? You bet - and we use both traditional marketing venues as well as viral marketing.

We had a job to do and we did it - against all odds.

In fact - we did what the "professional" marketing people either could not or did not."


We don't need an award to tell us who we are- marketers!I rest my case.