NBC5 gets down home with early morning team in new series of "Get More Local" spots
03/01/11 01:49 AM
By ED BARK
A series of decidedly homey new 30-second image spots on behalf of NBC5's morning team signals a back-to-basics approach for the Fort Worth-based station.
They harken to homegrown promotional campaigns of old, with no evidence, on-screen at least, of the one-size-fits-all ads produced corporately for thinly customized use by all of NBC's owned-and-operated stations.
News anchors Scott Friedman and Deborah Ferguson, weathercaster Jennifer Lopez and traffic reporter Tammy Dombeck are all shown in their comfort zones. Families and out-of-studio pursuits are underscored, with viewers even getting a look at the longtime "media marriage" of Ferguson and husband Steve Lamb, a veteran WBAP radio (820 AM) personality.
"I'm the messy one," he says. "I'm the neat one," she adds as the couple trade lines in their kitchen. They're later seen riding motorcycles together.
Friedman in turn is an avid bicyclist in one spot and a dedicated family man and father in another.
"We call it doing life together," he says as the Friedman clan gathers around a buffet dinner. His contented 11-month-old daughter "loves a party," dad proudly notes.
Dombeck is happily at home with her horse ("the biggest challenge was actually getting on the thing") and Lopez is "always on mom duty" with her two young daughters.
The overall tagline of the spots is "Get More Local." And under NBC's new Comcast ownership, that looks like the new marching orders.
NBC5 currently is running second in the early morning ratings race, behind Fox4 and ahead of WFAA8 and CBS11 in that order. There's lots of money to be made with a better showing. And these toasty, very nicely produced new spots are aimed at making it seem as though NBC5 has a decided home field advantage.
The station at this point isn't allowing embedding of the spots, which seems pretty silly. So you can't see them in these spaces, but you can find all six of them in a youtube cluster right here.