Recently, Teen Nick announced that they brought back reruns of popular 90s shows, such as Legends of the Hidden Temple, Kenan and Kel, All That, Salute Your Shorts, Rocko’s Modern Life and Double Dare, during their late night/early AM programming block. As you can imagine, I was a bit too excited about this. Growing up, I was literally obsessed with these shows. (Don’t believe me, I got my entire family to audition for Double Dare with me.) But now that I’m an adult, I realize that there is a lot of great marketing and PR lessons we can learn from Nick’s crazy success in the 90s.
1. Create an Iconic Sub-Brand(s)- or ‘brands within a brand”
In this case, Nick did this with SNICK, the primetime block that was uber popular with kids and tweens in the 90s like myself, and to a lesser extent, Nick Jr. and NickToons. This allowed them to diversify and reach out to a larger audience than keeping their shows in one giant cluster, where they could easily be confused. Let’s just say it was wildly successful then. What kid in America, who had cable, didn’t grow up watching at least one nicktoon or SNICK program. This created raving fanbases for 90s “brands/shows” within the umbrella large brand. Think Legends of the Hidden Temple, Rugrats or All That?
2. Create and cater to nostalgia
My generation, Gen Y, is already known to be really nostalgic. We embraced the best things from our childhood, and we talk about it with our friends on and offline a lot. In fact, there are hundreds of 90s Nick Show fan groups on Facebook.
After several years and hundreds upon thousands of new members, Nick embraced this and decided to bring back reruns of the most popular shows. While the timeslot is far from primetime (midnight-4 a.m.), it makes the best of a timeslot usually reserved for really bad infomercials and jaded old reruns. Not to mention, 20-somethings and college kids, their core demographic, are generally the most likely to be night owls and awake at that time. (And I admit it, falling asleep watching #90sAreAllThat is quickly becoming my new bedtime routine!)
3. It pays to engage and listen to your audience
I have to hand it to Nick. They are doing a killer job promoting their new late night lineup on social media. First, they used a really easy to remember hashtag, #90sAreAllThat, and it is incorporated on literally everything including on the bottom of the TV screen by the logo. They seemlessly integrate their TV lineup an programming with their social media strategy. They keep consistent, entertaining and interesting content across all their online platforms, including their site, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Not to mention, they also asking questions throughout the four hour late night block, which encourages even more people to join the conversation.
Factor in that Nick is monitoring, listening and replying to fans all on their social channels, they are fast becoming a social media success among the TV networks.
What else do you think marketers can learn from #90sAreAllThat? Or, what was your favorite 90s Nick Show? Please leave this in the comment section below.
You can learn how to really form a solid brand to focus your attention and effort on one specific area or niche of people. Try and bring that brand to life and really give your audience something to pay attention to.
Great point, Justice. And, I’d argue the best way to do this is to really listen and engage with your audience. Pay attention to what they are talking about and then deliver.
That is a good point. If you are engaging with your community then you will see the results and your brand will change.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane! 😀
Hey, great post! I’m actually developing my first blog (yay!), and my first post is going to be about #90sareallthat.
I definitely agree with what you say about the nostalgia. I have to admit, Nick tapped into the back of my brain when they developed this programming. They hit home immediately. They realized that this demographic (90s kids) are up during those hours and they took advantage of it with programs they have had in their vault (very Disney-esque, haha) for years. Nick has had ownership of these shows since they were made.
The quick editing of the commercials and in-between visuals (what the technical name for those is, I have no idea) reminds me of adult swim. They flash text, pictures and video on the screen rapidly, and we (Gen Ys) tend to catch most, if not all, of it.
Great points, Christine. The fact that Nick caught on to the nostalgia surrounding their 90s programming and then did something to bring it back speaks volumes. Factor in the cut-ins and commercials with small pieces of 90s shows and of course the iconic Stick-Stickly and you have the makings of a major success.
BTW, I look forward to reading your new blog, Christine.