Swan's Team

Background:

Taran Swan, the then Business Development Director for Nickelodeon, is going back to New York after her 4-month pregnancy is diagnosed as one with high-risk. While on board in the plane on her way back on June 30, 1998, she is contemplating over whether to delegate her responsibilities to someone back in the office and take complete bed rest or to continue handling her responsibilities on a work from home basis with the help of her assistant Sonia Schwarz. The next thing on her mind is -if at all, she decides on delegating the responsibility, then to whom should she delegate in a way that conflicts do not arise.

OUTLINE OF NICKELODEON'S SUCCESS:

Nickelodeon is a cable channel for kids 2-11 years old. It was launched in United States in 1979 and later got acquired by entertainment powerhouse Viacom in 1986. Nickelodeon is known for a variety of TV shows including live action, comedy, drama, animation, music, sports and game shows. By 1995, it became the highest rated cable network and had begun International expansion.

Each International channel subsequently had its own on-air identity and "slogan", while relying primarily on programming voiced over in the local language from the Nickelodeon library. To maintain the integrity of the brand, the channels were launched by a "Nickelodeon International Swat team", comprising of Nickelodeon people from the corporate office who lived and breathed the brand. They would come, build the channel from the grass roots and then transition to local management. By 1998, Nickelodeon was operating in more than 30 countries.

FLOW OF EVENTS:

In 1993, Taran Swan, had begun to explore opportunities in Latin America. But, cable industry infrastructure was still at its infancy. In 1995, she was sent to Germany when the launch director in Germany was failing to perform. Swan and her team succeeded in building the channel from scratch and have an on-air launch within days as on July 1995. When she returned to business development, her focus again shifted to Latin America. Cartoon Network and Fox kids Network were the only 2 kids' channels available at that time and Swan intuitively felt that it was the right time to enter the market. After a lot of discussions and persuasion, she was made the launch director for the Latin American project. Before Viacom could give full corporate backing, Swan would need her business plan is viable by securing minimum distribution of signing up 2 million households. She has the backing of Nickelodeon international swat team and shared MTV people to take care of the needed activities until she obtains full approval.

CORPORATE APPROVAL:

The logo of Nickelodeon is orange in color, so the people working for the network are said to have orange blood. Swan and the swat team had to conduct workshops for the people who were working for MTV as the activities in both the channels were worlds apart. MTV is belonged to the generation X as opposed to the other which was quirky and kid focused.

SELLING THE CHANNEL:

MTV's affiliate sales team's job is to secure cable affiliates for Nickelodeon and the company's policy is not to compromise on price and quality. Due to virtual monopolies, the distributors were willing to place Nickelodeon on the basic platform which gives the broadest distribution possible, but they did not want to pay for the programming.

Attracting advertisers:

Both advertising sales and affiliate sales were complicated by a lack of accurate market data or reliable ratings which made it difficult to construct and pitch competitive deals. Early on, the team decided to launch with2 separate feeds, northern and southern to allow advertisers to target somewhat more localized markets. They also began dubbing programming in Portuguese in preparation for a Brazil feed. She took the risk that this event will eventually become financially viable.

Differentiating the brand:

Swan knew that she had a strong brand on which to build. In such a crowded market, Swan saw her primary concern as capturing attention and differentiating the brand in order to convince the advertisers and the affiliates to choose nickelodeon over other channels. She decided to go for characteristic big bets like concentrating the money and efforts on one major project to make a splash. This is where Donna Friedman was identified by Swan. She was involved in Germany launch too. She arranged for a brand experience party at Jornadas, the largest cable trade show in Latin America. It was a good platform attended by 15000 people making the people knows how well Nickelodeon knows kids. Donna was known for her creativity and she is known to fight for the brand. Both Swan and Donna arranged a kids' experience party and it was a big success where a kid's perspective is shown to people. This demonstrated that Swan and Donna went all out to take risk and saw to that the risk taken was worth it.

Swan's team:

The 2 promotions namely the one at Jornadas and the kids' experience party were a big success and they helped a great deal in generating ad and affiliate sales. Swan gave everyoneassociated with the project a free hand to come out in the open and suggest ideas that will ensure success of the launch. She with her managerial abilities used to see to it all of them are motivated at all times through thick and thin of the project activities. She selected Valeri McCarty, a native of Puerto Rico, to be the Vice President of Marketing and Communication. She then selected Stephen Grieder as the Vice President of programming and Creative Director. Since Donna is known for her contagious enthusiasm of the brand, she was made the Vice President of Marketing and Associate Creative Director.

Post corporate approval:

After securing the minimum distribution targets, in September 1996, Swan's team got the full corporate approval. Unlike Germany, senior management made Swan the General Manager for the next 2 years. So it turned out that Swan will be reporting to Tom Hunter who will be working out of Miami which is the headquarters for the Latin American operations. This was Swan's chance to take what had begun as a gleam in her eye through the on-air launch and turn it into reality. She spent big money to hire good people. She said she doesn't want people who say that it is not their area of responsibility; she wants everyone to be involved in all aspects of the business so that they would become better-rounded, help each other and build on each other's