They all laughed when MTV founders said, "We're launching a 24-hour rock ’n’roll channel"
How ad legend George Lois (and a good dose of lateral thinking) saved MTV from going bankrupt after its first year of operations
A 24-hour rock ’n’roll channel? In 1981?
It's hard to believe today, but when MTV launched in 1981, MTV was an epic failure.
In fact, after its first year of operations, MTV almost went bankrupt.
The first year of MTV on air, they only sold $500k worth of advertising.
Advertisers thought MTV was a joke.
Rock stars hated MTV.
Music publishers barked, "MTV is going to kill our business".
Record companies screamed, "We're never going to produce videos."
And when MTV launched it wasn't even available in BIG markets like New York, San Francisco or LA.
MTV was only available in rural parts of America.
Because running cable in rural areas was a looooooot cheaper. And MTV was having a hard time persuading major cable operators to accept them.
So after calling 1981 an annus horribilis, MTV CEO Robert "Bob" Pittman calls ad legend George Lois.
Pittman asks Lois to do an emergency campaign to change the minds of the BIG cable operators of America.
Then Lois comes up with the “I want my MTV!” campaign.
The concept was simple. But bold.
Mick Jagger urged rock fans to call their cable companies:
If you don’t get MTV where you live, call your cable operator, and say I WANT MY MTV!
Lois runs the commercial in San Francisco on a Thursday night.
8:30 AM in New York (5:30 AM in San Francisco) the cable operator calls Pittman and screams, "Pittman, get that f*cking commercial off the air. I'm getting thousands of phone calls."
Then everything changed. Within months, MTV was available in 80% of all households.
Record labels were begging MTV to broadcast their music videos.
Advertisers loved MTV.
And every Rock & Pop star wanted to do an “I WANT MTV!” commercial.
Takeaways for your business:
1. You can turn business problems into BIG opportunities IF you change how you think about them.
A little hack to reframe business problems? Start with the business problem, and then explain why it’s happening.
2. Traditionally, there are 4 types of business problems: Category, Product, Culture or Brand. Identify which one is yours.
(Source: Alex Morris - The Strategy and Planning Scrapbook)
3. If you want to persuade people to act, you should never start from what you want people to do. There’s a better way. And it involves discovering what’s the pressure point that’s blocking behavior change.
How? Figure out what people want (what makes them look good), OR what’s the #1 thing they want to avoid at all cost (what makes them look bad).
Hint: In MTV’s case, cable operators were the pressure point. And George Lois knew that. So he figured out a very provocative way to get thousands of rock fans to drive Cable Operators crazy with phone calls.
Your pal,
🚀 Founder & Chief Copywriter: teardwn.com
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