I wasn't going to beat this dead horse any more, but your total lack of marketing knowledge has forced me to respond....
Just like the basic real estate tenet is 'location, location, location', Rule Number 1 in marketing is 'repetition, repetition, repetition'. Getting your name out in front of the customer and maintaining it, over and over again. Beating it into their brains so that when they finally feel a want or a need for your product, they think of you.
Yes, QTN advertised in the national gay magazines (and in USA Today, amazingly) - twice. Was this to attract subscribers? If so, then 90% of the circulation was a total waste, since the station wasn't even on the air in their area. To put it another way, how many local stores in your city run advertising in Time magazine, or Newsweek? None, I bet.
Yes, QTN had floats in gay pride parades around the country last year - and half of them were in cities that the station wasn't even being offered!!!
The marketing department at QTN was forbidden, by Frank, to advertise in local city gay magazines and newspapers, or to hand out fliers advertising the station in local gay bars, or to get involved in any local gay organizations or clubs, or to run any advertising in the local cable magazines or fliers. As Junk said - grass roots efforts.
Why would Frank do this? Doesn't seem to make sense if you're trying to drum up local subscribers, now, does it? EXACTLY!!!!! There's only one reason you would invest ALL of your advertising dollars in a 'national' campaign like this.....
FRANK DID NOT CARE ABOUT INCREASING SUBSCRIPTIONS, ONLY ABOUT ATTRACTING INVESTORS. From all over the country - whether they could receive the signal or not, he didn't care. And that's where all of the marketing, and advertising, and press release efforts were geared toward. Selling stock, NOT getting viewers. Frank didn't give a crap about how many people were watching the station- he only cared about selling the stock.
And companies do not succeed in the long term with that kind of mission strategy. EOM.
