Chapter 5

Business Solutions

There are more than 500 TV channels in the United States. Worldwide, the number reaches into the thousands. With 24 hours in a day, seven days a week, the math for TV programmers can be fairly overwhelming, yet it pales in comparison to the seemingly infinite amount of original content that one finds via the Internet.

Long ago, TV executives learned to deal with the challenge by developing content by genre—dramas, situation comedies, variety entertainment, news, sports, and, most recently, reality—and then programming them against specific parts of the day: daytime, primetime, and late night. Since then, it has simply been a matter of continually coming up with new variations on these themes. For brands doing business online, there is a comparable method for keeping content flowing.

In the network model, business solutions are distinctive strategic initiatives designed to achieve long-term brand value. Like the various content categories that populate TV networks, they represent universal principles that can be applied throughout the social spectrum and can be used again and again because they always ring true with target audiences. Accordingly, they make it possible to globally standardize marketing strategies across channels and platforms.

“Whether a brand's goal is to increase its sales, expand the number of followers, respond to criticism, or improve sentiment, it can plug in the right business solution to achieve that,” says Michoel Ogince, director ...

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