A Headless Horseman stalked a Manhattan street to sell the new Fox series “Sleepy Hollow.” Eighties memorabilia surprised people if their surname just happened to be Goldberg to promote ABC’s new ’80s-era comedy called “The Goldbergs.” But even with such marketing efforts, executives say calling attention to the 12 new series due this week — or the total influx of 28 new shows on five networks over the next few weeks — has been anything but easy.

“It’s harder than ever,” said George Schweitzer, the president of the CBS Marketing Group, who has been trying to promote new network shows for more than two decades.

It is harder in part because the broadcast networks try what now seems to be a preposterous feat every September — introducing dozens of new series at the same time. The cable networks, which now win most of the accolades, focus on just one new show at a time.

The broadcast networks also have been challenged by a continuing decline in their ratings and because competition for leisure time is everywhere.

“It’s exhausting, and it’s expensive” to promote network programming, said Joe Earley, the chief operating officer of the Fox network.

None of the network executives interviewed for this article would cite specific figures for their fall marketing budgets, but the consensus is that hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent trying to lead viewers to the pleasures of “The Millers” on CBS, “Trophy Wife” on ABC, “Junior MasterChef ” on Fox and “Ironside” on NBC.

That estimate is especially true if the value of on-air citations is included. As Mr. Earley noted, “We can’t stop buying old media, like print and outdoor and radio, but we also need to buy whatever is the new mobile experience or the new digital network.”

The operative notion expressed by network marketing executives was: leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of promotional ideas. Mr. Earley expanded it, “We were down to pebbles, and we were looking into grains of sand we could turn over.”

Fox went to the old playbook, beginning the bulk of its new shows a week early. That means it had a mostly free shot last week to let viewers sample those shows. And the effort was rewarded. Three new Fox series did relatively well, the comedies, “Dads” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” and the drama “Sleepy Hollow.”

The latter was a full-court effort. Fox began promoting “Sleepy Hollow” in May, the day it was announced to advertisers in New York, and it never let up.

Fox set up a representation of the set in Madison Square Park in Manhattan. People could stage a pseudo fight with the Horseman, and Fox would turn it into an image they could send to friends. Actors in headless costumes visited multiple cities and even state fairs. Fox set up green-screen effects at affiliated stations so the local weather forecasters could do their reports “headless” on the night of the premiere.

“We even had Headless walking around Times Square the day of the premiere,” Mr. Earley said. (Over the long promotional period, he developed a first-name-basis relationship with the character.) For “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” a show set in a police precinct, Fox took over the Jay Street subway station and handed out free coffee and doughnuts. The two shows scored well in the areas networks follow before a new season: awareness and intent to view, as measured by Nielsen and other research organizations. Each network watches these figures closely throughout the summer, though they are, most agree, profoundly unreliable.

“When it looks good for our shows, we’re very happy,” Mr. Schweitzer said. “When it doesn’t go well, we say, ‘It’s not right.’ ”

Among the factors affecting awareness and intent to view are familiarity with stars and what is known as “title inflation.” People think they know something about a coming show by its title, even though they do not.

That was a risk on “Sleepy Hollow,” Mr. Earley said, because of what he called “literary awareness” and familiarity with the classic Disney cartoon. Unsurprisingly, the show with the best awareness and intent-to-view scores going into the season is “The Michael J. Fox Show” on NBC, because of the star’s strong personal appeal.

Similarly, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” ABC’s new drama, is riding into the season with huge anticipation because of its associations with comic books and movies.

In contrast, CBS’s new comedy “The Crazy Ones” did not break through based on its title, but when viewers were made aware that the show stars Robin Williams, the scores rose markedly.

Marla Provencio, executive vice president for marketing at ABC, said of the awareness studies: “It’s a tool rather than rule. We’ve had certain shows launch where the awareness and the intent weren’t that great. There are so many other things that are variables. Obviously your lead-in is a great variable. And in the terms of the way people view television these days, it’s a very hard thing.”

Last fall, one show seemed to be exploding in terms of awareness and intent to view: an ABC drama called “666 Park Avenue.” It disappeared quickly. On the other side, CBS had a show in 2000 with a tiny awareness score. It wound up being a multibillion-dollar franchise called “C.S.I.”

As difficult as it is to break through the clutter of the new fall shows, some opportunities have arisen. Mr. Earley cited the DVR, first seen as a threat, now — along with video on demand, and digital sites like Netflix — a boon, offering a chance for shows to survive as alternative choices. “You don’t have to be someone’s favorite,” Mr. Earley said. “You can be the second favorite.”

And then there is social media. Marketers are experimenting with how to use such sites to increase awareness of shows, fuel word of mouth and even promote shows during broadcasts.

Ms. Provencio said, “We have no metrics for the social space, but you can’t tell me, with the way Twitter worked for ‘Scandal,’ that there isn’t a correlation to the fact that ratings went up once the Twitter-fest happened.” “Scandal,” an ABC drama, exploded in the ratings midway through last season after it became the talk of Twitter.

The effectiveness of all of the efforts to appeal to viewers will begin to be measured when the bulk of the shows finally arrive this week.

As Mr. Schweitzer put it: “We get this stuff on the air, and then the viewer tells us. They’ll tell us starting Monday.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/business/media/networks-go-to-extremes-to-promote-new-shows-for-the-fall-season.html?partner=rss&emc=rss