The canthook is a tool used to change the orientation of a pole or post once it has been set in the ground. Thus, The Canthook seeks a different orientation to familiar topics.
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When "New Coke" came out, the folks at Pepsi rejoiced. Their competitor had the most recognizable brand in the world, and they stopped making it. The problem, of course, was that Pepsi did have taste that beat the others cold. At lower temperatures, sugar isn't as sweet (and neither is corn syrup, which they use instead of real sugar.)
Coke did their own taste tests, and came up with a taste that people preferred in blind taste tests. The problem is that people don't select a cola because of taste, so much as they prefer one "brand identity" over the other. People got upset. Many people switched to Pepsi rather than drink the product from perfidious Atlanta.
And at their headquarters in Purchase, New York, the Pepsi execs were finalizing plans to introduce their clone of Classic Coke, which they tentatvely were calling "Savannah Cola." Before they could release it, though, Coke re-introduced their original product, under the name Classic Coke. It did permanent damage to the brand, although all these many years later, the damage is fairly minimal.
Tonight, WGAL scheduled "News At Eleven" to run at 11:30 PM. That's actually not a bad idea. We suggested a year ago that if they were going to run it at 11:30, they ought to schedule it for 11:30.
The problem, though, is that they didn't start their broadcast until 11:48. That kinda makes a joke of the WGAL catchline "News You Can Count On". because you can't.
It's frustrating viewers, and in their frustration, they're sampling the news on the other channels. And one of the other channels is offering a fairly good product. And the folks at WGAL know that as well - their news star, Janellle Stelson, worked at two other local TV stations before moving to WGAL.
Thirty years ago, in a galaxy far away, I was eating lunch with a marketing expert and some co-workers. One of them mentioned rumors that his company had just turned down a billion dollar offer by a company that wanted to enter the market. The marketing expert said, "Your hardware and software is obsolete every 3-4 years, right?" We all nodded. "So how many really key people are there in this company?"
One guy put his tongue in a far corner of his mouth, and thought for a moment. "Seventeen," he said, "give or take a couple."
"OK," the marketing expert said, "Of those seventeen people, how many of them would accept an offer of $1 million dollars to go on vacation for a year?"
The same guy said promptly, "Seventeen."
So there's your answer, the marketing guy said. You give away million dollar "sabatticals" to those seventeen people, and in a year, a competitor can be number one in this market. He looked around. Am I right, he asked? This isn't a billion dollar company. It's a seventeen million dollar company.
But the thing is, WGAL doesn't need someone else to get their viewers out of the WGAL habit. They're perfectly willing to shoot themselves in the foot.
I know if I was running Steinman Enterprises, I'd promote some promising people at their Delmarva Broadcasting stations, and bring the pros from dover into Lancaster, to turn LancasterOnline into an internet television station. And if it were necessary, I'd give away scholarships to certain journalists in Lancaster County, in order to get them attending college instead of broadcasting the news for competitors. But there's really no need, as long as WGAL is accomplishing the same thing already.
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News at Eleven - WGAL
