Another World Discussion Thread

[Contessa Donatella]

@j swift Totally agree on the general ineptitude of NBC to promote their soaps! In any way, print or tv, at any time, with possibly some very few exceptions, they just produced one flop after another. 

@Xanthe  This promo is just such a hoot! Such a total disconnect between the show, the characters, and this hip 90s dance theme. And, here we have a rare something, Dano in the hair extensions!! Those images are hard to find! I know. To come up with pictures of "Dano with long hair" that people ask for, I ended up making screen caps from that week Jason was killed, the birthday bash. Dano & Wm. Grey look ridic! I'm so tickled you found it. It should be soundly ridiculed among people who love the show! 

We always called her Cocaine Nicole! 

[Franko]

Speaking of AW promos, I keep hoping the clip (from 1999?) of the male cast getting down will return. It's too much of a hoot not to cherish.

Also, I feel like the "NBC Daytime Update" campaign, which was apparently exclusive to AW, didn't do the show any favors. It might have worked for an always-something-going-on kind of show, like that era of GH or DOOL.

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[Contessa Donatella]

Were they in blue chambray shirts or in black t-shirts or black sleeved shirts?? From either one of these?

 

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[Franko]

No, this was several years later. I want to say that both Henry Simmons and the guy who played Sergei were in it.

[Contessa Donatella]

This is a NBC primetime promo that I saw this week & like. Of course, it's primetime not daytime. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxTlv5rOhvm/?fbclid=IwAR2DdI0kfazC-HXqNSelEDehq4_pFDTh4rgNraKzfMB8UMr6cZL7vpElTNc

[Vee]

It was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. Like a gay dance party.

[Xanthe]

If the men of Bay City want to have a gay dance party, more power to them. But promotions that focus on how attractive the people are instead of how interesting their problems are are much less likely to reel me in.

 

[chrisml]

Do people really watch shows because of a good promo? I can't think of any promo that made me want to watch a new soap or go back to an old one. If a storyline grabbed me, the promo for the storyline was not going to have an effect because I was going to watch anyway. In most ways, a promo would simply confirm that I didn't want to watch.

[j swift]

Hard disagree @chrisml

When I saw the promo for Cecile's return, I tuned in after years of watching OLTL

When I saw the clever promos for Santa Barbara featuring actors from other soaps, I returned to watching that soap during an otherwise fallow period.

When I saw Eastenders famous "White Wedding" promo for Peggy and Frank's wedding, it made me watch that soap for the first time.

Promos obviously work, or they wouldn't be produced, and to suggest that people are not vulnerable to being influenced is to deny one of the key reasons for the growth of social media. 

[Contessa Donatella]

In general I think that promotions work. I think in general that advertising works. But, you obviously have effective promotional campaigns & ineffective ones. Add to that the fact that different types of people & ages of people respond & react differently, it's kind of a crap shoot (1) predicting what will be successful and (2) evaluating after the fact what worked & what did not. Given that many experts have compiled enormous amounts of data, basically we still do not know what makes a hit. Yet we live in a society that is rife with promotions & advertising. 

I guess one way to look at the big picture is that if they could conclusively prove that promotions did not work, period, at all, then they would stop doing them. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Obviously I agree with the first half of what you're saying here but I don't follow where you end up with the 2nd half. Perhaps you would satisfy my curiosity. What do promotions have to do with the growth of social media? 

[chrisml]

I believe that most people have to already have interest in an actor or a storyline for a promo to work so the promo is superfluous. I seriously doubt (for ex.) that an OLTL or an ATWT viewer suddenly decided to watch AW because they saw a Moments to Love promo for the show. Some promos worked for you, but I don't think promos overall had much impact on ratings most of the time when it comes to soaps. I'm not sure there would be a way to measure this either way. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Reginald Love 1st on 8-8-86. Anna Stuart left 11-21-86 & back 2-23-89 so gone 2 years & 2 months. Philece Sampler began 2-4-87. 

So, Reg arrived with Donna in place for 3 months, then no Donna at all for 3 months, then a new Donna. 

Meanwhile, the twins: Wheeler's last day was 9-29-86 but Lewen came on 9-26-86 so there was no time without a Vicky. Heche began 7-6-87. So there was some time when no one was playing Marley. 

So, I think the story could have been told with Philece playing Nicole with no Donna for that amount of time & still had Donna be given a welcome homecoming & retaking an important place. 

This had been bugging me but I had literally no time to look up all the relevant dates. I started thinking about it again & just did it. 

@Xanthe   Can you take pity on me & tell me what page the first "Breakaway" promo is on?

Edited October 26, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges
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[Contessa Donatella]

Of course, you might be right. However, if so, I honestly don't think they would have continued to produce them. And, I would bet you that they have charts & graphs & numbers to prove what they think is the situation with any & all promos. That's just the very kind of metrics they would either do or have provided to them by ad agencies. 

[Contessa Donatella]

And we know now that on SFT Kathy went to NY & had a legal abortion in 1971. (Two other states had legal abortion but they had residency requirements. NY state had no residency requirement.)