Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Something someone wrote about TV that I think applies to advertising and other things

From a Masked Scheduler post about the now-fired NBC Uni CEO Jeff Zucker:

You either respect the television audience; they work hard, love their friends and families, struggle to make ends meet and to put food on their table. They look to us to entertain them for a few hours....make them laugh, cry, escape, relate. They are smarter than all of us and know what they want far better than we do.

OR

You hold the audience in contempt, treat them like sheep, think you are smarter than they are, pander to them and believe that they will never hold you responsible for your actions.


Zucker seems to have had a low regard for both the audience and the creative community and the result speaks for itself. Maybe you can't do any effective entertaining, persuading, advising or story-telling if you don't respect the people you're talking to. And if you can't respect people who are very different than you -- who live, eat, think, vote, or work differently -- then your ratings or sphere of influence or sales will be Zuckeresque.

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