Monday, March 27, 2017

Vice Who?

This is an ad in the media trade e-newsletter Cynopsis. Maybe it hits a little close to home but I find it kind of offensive when Vice says "Young People are tired of Old White Guys". Do they mean like Vice founder Shane Smith? (Old, white and now very rich). Or Vice investor Rupert Murdoch? He's really old.. and really white but also really rich. or Tom Freston, who made Vice what it is today.

Vice has had a ton of $ thrown at it in recent months due to it's "pied piper" status for reaching millennials which TV Networks are desperate to do. But Viceland has been an unqualified failure thus far, netting shows with titles like "Balls Deep" and less ratings than H2 or whatever was originally programmed at that channel.

But no surprise, Millennials are hard to reach (as is everyone with a gazillion things vying for their attention) and advertising $s even more scarce, which this ad was designed to address.

It doesn't work. Double digit growth from next to nothing audience is not really anything to crow about and the headline in the ad would be considered racists if it were making fun of any other gender or ethnicity (substitute "fat" or "dumb" for "old" and "Black, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, etc" for "White" or "woman" for "dude" and see how it sounds), especially coming from a network run by "old white dudes"