TV Archives - Messages On Hold

Expose Yourself

The more exposure you get through the media, the more familiar your company becomes to the punter. And the more familiar you are to your audience, the greater the chance of securing their business.

The sporting world has long known the power of getting their sponsors’ logos in the media. Take F1 motor racing. Companies pay millions to have their logo associated with F1 teams, both on the cars and the drivers.

Take this shot of a post-race press conference for example. Look closely and you’ll notice the logos on the arms of the driver on the right are clearly visible, it’s as if someone has stuck a piece of board down the suit to square up the logos to the camera.

So vital is that international exposure that media savvy teams have a PR person intercept the driver and help him dress for the waiting media. The driver unzips his suit and drops the top, tying it around around his waist. The PR person then helps the driver into a race jacket in the same design as the suit. The thing about this jacket is that it has stiff panels sewn down on both the upper arms and sometimes in the chest panel, all designed to present sponsor logos flat and square to the camera. You’ll note also that almost all of them wear a watch at the press conference, once again, presented to them by the PR person.

When a company is paying a minimum of 6 figures (right up to 8 figures even!), TV exposure of this magnitude is crucial. If the big boys leave nothing to chance, neither should you. Plan for media exposure and make sure your logo is presented in the best possible light.

A Peek Behind The Scenes

We recognised Shane Warne’s star qualities in early 2006 when we pursued him to be an ambassador for Messages On Hold. After some nine months of negotiations with his brother and manager at the time, Jason Warne, we agreed to a sponsorship package that worked for both of us.

We launched our association at a press conference in Melbourne on October 2006. With every Australian media outlet (and a number of overseas TV crews) assembled, the reporters were eating up the story. Some were distracted by the “ironic” link between Messages On Hold’s recorded promotional messages and Shane’s text messaging. The fact was, we don’t do text messaging, but various media chose to ignore that fact as it would have ruined their “angle”.

Shane “padded away” the stupid and insolent questions and chose, like a true professional, to steer the focus back to the business association. He was a focus machine – I guess that’s what separates the good players from the great ones.

During that same conference, Shane mentioned confidentially to a well-known Channel 9 journalist, that he was separating from Simone. After the press conference, that journalist (who was also a friend of Shane’s) ambushed him, shoving a microphone in his face asking questions about the split. PR whiz, Max Markson, had to jump in and shepherd Shane from the zealous reporter.

Unfortunately that didn’t stop Channel 9 Melbourne from leading off their bulletin with a story about “Shane’s Split”. Interestingly enough, they were the only ones to run with that story. Fortunately for us (and of course, Shane), the launch was a huge success.