THE BATTLE OF THE ABS: WHEN EXPECTATIONS AND REALITY DON’T MEET

Can pre-launch marketing campaigns make or break a show?

First of all, despite what the picture may suggest this is NOT an article comparing Arrow and Beauty and the Beast. This is not about which show is the best or which show I personally like the most. This is about pre-premiere expectations and how we can “decide” to like or dislike a show even before we get a chance to watch it.

I am not a casual television viewer. My goal is to make a living working in television and I try to watch as many shows as I can. I don’t need to be particularly interested in a show to start watching it.  And, as it turns out, every year I end up loving shows I never thought I would like [Banshee, Breaking Bad]. But… who has time to just “sample” every new show like I do, right? Normal TV viewers will pick a few shows to which they will devote their limited TV viewing time. And how do they pick these shows? By pre-launch buzz. And pre-launch buzz is generated by two main sources: critics’ reviews and marketing campaigns.

"So this show is about abs, right?
There are worse things in life..."

I usually agree with most of what the critics say, but every once in a while I get annoyed by them. Sometimes critics seem to have ONE collective opinion and once one of them declares a show is “not good enough” they all fall in line. The opposite occurs as well; when a show is deemed worthy they ALL watch it. It’s almost like they are scared to go against their peers. I never understood why The Killing got so many bad reviews or why The Good Wife is considered the Holy Grail of television. But… not much we can do about that.

In any case, not all members of the audience read reviews… but most are susceptible to pre-launch marketing. I would really like to understand the [faulty] logic of TV marketing. Instead of dividing the marketing budget equally among all new shows, they seem to pour most of it on one or two they brand as “hits” and give minimal exposure to the rest. How do they decide which show will be a hit, I have NO IDEA. I’d like to believe they at least do some sort of marketing analysis; a focus group or something of the sort… however, I doubt it. Whatever their methods, they sure get it wrong more often than not. Unexpected shows become hits (Grey’s Anatomy), meant-to-be-hits die down (Smash), low rated shows become classics after a few years of failing (Seinfeld) and some shows become megahits post-mortem (Firefly).

"So who is the angry [good] looking guy? He
doesn't look like a "beast" and
WTH is up with his hair?"

Instead of thinking the marketing dollars should go to the “hits”, they should realize well-executed marketing could make any show into a hit. I believe pre-premiere marketing campaigns are very important; they create awareness and excitement, but they can also lead to disappointment when not conducted properly.

Which brings me back to what started this post in the first place: The way I reacted to the premieres of Arrow and Beauty and the Beast (launched in the fall of 2012). I pick these two because they illustrate how expectations (as a consequence of marketing) can be nothing like reality.

The CW clearly decided Arrow was meant to be the “hit of the season” and they did everything to ensure it. I remember watching those first trailers that had Stephen Amell doing that jump-bar pull up thingie [while shirtless] and it looked quite awesome… I must say. The trailers made the show look dark and edgy and I am a huge Greg Berlanti fan, the fact that he was attached to the project was a big bonus.

Not really a re-make... we just took the names

On the other hand, I didn’t know what to think about Beauty and the Beast. Maybe I was not paying much attention, but I never grasped the concept of the show. All I can remember from the early trailers is Kristin Kreuk running through the woods… with braided hair, which made me think: ‘She’s like 30, is she still playing a teen?’ And there was a beast… That’s all I got: Pretty girl saved by Beast. Nothing to indicate the type of show, the tone or the basic plot. To increase the confusion they were marketing the show as a “re-make of the Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman” 80s version of Beauty and the Beast. But the new version didn’t seem to have the underground communities, over the top romance or a lion man! [No Lion Man? What’s the point?]

In the trailer we saw a Hulk-like creature but the posters showed this intense, good looking guy with golden eyes. And speaking of the guy… that is another thing that put me off. I was very familiar with Kristin from Smallville and even before, so I was surprised they didn’t go with whichever CW/WB hottie was in vogue that year to play the “Beast”. I didn’t know who this Jay Ryan person was or where the hell they got him from… The factory of perfect men as I later found out [which is apparently based in New Zealand], but I didn’t know that before I watched the show! I knew this dude was going to be hot [it’s a CW show, duh!], but the promos and posters did nothing to make him particularly appealing to me. Unlike that Arrow poster of [a photo shopped more tanned] Stephen, that I kept seeing EVERYWHERE.

Isn't he supposed to be a millionaire? Can he... you know
buy a shirt? All this shirtlessness is way less exciting than
I imagined...

Anyway, the day came and I watched the premieres of both shows. Arrow was pretty much everything I expected: Fun graphic-novel-action with darker undertones and solid writing. I am not a die-hard Arrow fan but I enjoy watching it and I think, overall, it’s quite an effective show. Probably its biggest advantage is that it appeals to both women and men. They have the action/comic book elements for the guys and some relationship drama plus eye-candy [that they flaunt a little too much] for the girls. The show is very well structured and I think the writers do a pretty good job with it. I don’t like some aspects of it: the island story drags too much sometimes and I have my issues with the character of Oliver [partly due to the writing, mostly the acting]. But that is a discussion for a different day [or the comments’ section]. Today’s point is that I was excited for Arrow and almost predisposed to like. And I liked it. However, I didn’t like the leading man half as much as I was expecting and I think the break out star of the show is Emily Bett Rickards [who doesn’t get the media exposure she deserves IMO].   

Look, Vincent can do that pull-up bar thing too. He is also
shirtless sometimes... but he has many more shirts than
Oliver... even though he has no job

So that was it for Arrow. A couple of days later I watched Beauty and the Beast and I thought it was awful. I have obviously changed my mind since then but initially, I was so confused by it! The pilot had several flaws and I couldn’t tell what type of show I was watching [Supernatural? Sci-fi? Procedural? A remake?] I just couldn’t reconcile my preconceptions with what I was actually watching. I thought some aspects of it were cool [great cast, neat action sequences and I love a super-soldier story as much as the next sci-fi fanatic]; however I was ready to quit after one episode. I am sure a LOT of people had a similar experience to mine. In fact many die-hard fans confess they didn’t like the show at first [some loved it from the get-go, but I posit they are the ones who weren’t influenced by the misleading initial marketing].

Read my review of the pilot HERE

Read my journey from hater to Beastie HERE “Why you may want to give Beauty and the Beast a second chance”

There were 3 key moments [which indicated the true nature of the show] that made me keep watching:

"I am not a Beast, just a non-threatening biochemist with
"real boring" DNA and I pay my parking tickets.

1.  JT opens the door to the warehouse.  Our pretty cops, Cat and Tess, go to a creepy warehouse looking for a “Beast” and find the most non-threatening character instead. I loved JT the minute he opened that door [and he has been killing every scene and every line since then].
2. Jay Ryan opens his mouth. Unlike Stephen Amell who looked appealing in the posters/trailers but was just OK once I saw him in action; Jay Ryan came alive in the actual episode. Suddenly all questions of why they cast this unknown person dissipated. He had the perfect [and rarest] combination of vulnerability and strength and… he was hot…. like really hot. Not just another CW young hunk… like a better [more mature] and improved version of that. And the voice… well, let’s just say no voice effects were ever needed on BatB.
3. Jay and Kristin open a bottle of instant chemistry. The scene at the tracks was “the moment” for me. At that point in the pilot, I was bored because it looked like an ineffective combination of Supernatural and CSI. I was not impressed, but the scene at the tracks sure woke me up. Yes, the action sequence was pretty cool but I am talking about what came after when Vincent pushes Cat against the wall to save her from a moving train and Cat proclaims “You are him”. It’s a 2 seconds scene but it hit me like a train [no pun intended] and I remember thinking:  “So that is what chemistry looks like” and I realized that whatever I’ve been watching on TV passing for “chemistry” was a cheap imitation of the real thing.

CHEMISTRY

Anyway, my point is that this scene at the tracks and the scene that came after were what the show would ultimately be about… Was this showcased before the premiere? Not at all…

While the CW succeeded in building the right kind of buzz for Arrow, they completely confused the potential audience of BatB. I think it is fair to say that a lot of people felt exactly like me after the pilot [disappointed and confused] and just stopped watching after the first episode. I know most critics did. Now Arrow is a bonafide hit and Beauty and the Beast is constantly struggling with the ratings. I am aware some people simply would prefer Arrow, but I also think there is an untapped audience Beauty and the Beast never reached. I think BatB is more suitable for a Grey’s Anatomy fan than a Supernatural/The Vampire Diaries fan… but it was never marketed as a “relationship drama” which I think it ultimately is [with modifying sci-fi/action subgenres].  

But why am I writing about shows that premiered in 2012? Because TV history tends to repeat itself. I guess what I am trying to say is… Don’t trust your expectations. Marketing can be misleading and polarized. Sampling new shows is the only way to find the one that can truly become your favourite. I expected to love Arrow and I liked it; I didn't know what to expect with BatB, almost stopped watching, and now I love it! So… don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t judge a show by the pilot. I guess those are my words of TV wisdom.

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TVEmpress

The TV Empress is a Media Management graduate, screenwriter in the making (and financial engineer in the meantime). She has serious plans to take over global television. You can follow the TVEmpress on twitter @TVRepublik