AIM TV GROUP’S 25th ANNIVERSARY THROWBACK: As my company, AIM TV Group, continues to celebrate its 25th year in existence, I thought I’d share my first “press conference,” which occurred circa 2006 or 2007, I estimate. Our “Help Change TV” and “Change The Sample” campaign to convince Nielsen Media Research to count the U.S.-born segment of the US Hispanic television market better and more accurately.
The press conference preceded an event, which I believe was our fifth-season celebration of “American Latino TV.”
If I recall correctly, it rained cats and dogs. However, we still had a decent turnout, and this press conference was my first attempt to pressure Nielsen to change its methodology publicly.
Later, I’d develop a guerrilla campaign at the annual NATPE TV conference in Las Vegas (once a big deal for syndicated TV). I hired “models” to roll around the floor and mill around the Nielsen booth wearing “Help Change TV” T-shirts and tape on their mouths (to represent their voices not being heard). They handed out flyers to anyone who wanted to learn more and could sign a petition.
Nielsen, who initially ignored me until we got some major press in the NY Times, Toronto Globe Mail, etc., responded by ignoring us… at first.
Then, at that NATPE, our unorthodox guerilla marketing campaign was the biggest talk of the convention that year (until we were upstaged by an announced UPN / WB Merger to become the CW). Now, Nielsen wished to engage us. At a hastily called meeting at NATPE, they asked me to call off the protest. We agreed to meet back in NYC and discuss improving their sampling of US Hispanics (something they were previously not open to doing – because their big Spanish TV client, Univision, my former employer, would have been hurt financially with a more accurate sample).
So, on the conference’s final day, I called off the protest, took Nielsen at their word, and tried to line up the promised meeting as soon as I returned to New York.
My representative from Nielsen, who sat in the meeting in Las Vegas, said that the meeting never happened and that I must be mistaken. She acted as if I imagined the entire 30-minute meeting (and there were witnesses).
The bottom line is that Nielsen never intended to change their methodology. I suspect this multi-billion-dollar corporation made a fake promise to relieve some pressure at the TV conference, thinking I’d give up and go away and that the hullabaloo would subside.
Though the press had moved on to other issues, as they are wont to do, I never forgot. Still, I eventually forgave the individuals involved in the lying. However, my animus for massive corporations was born after my first David vs. Goliath moment (more would follow). I had only experienced working for a large corporate company, Univision, for three years, and I had met some fantastic people, many of whom I’m still friends with to this day.
However, I also witnessed how large companies could shield incompetence and unethical behavior by removing individual accountability. It depended on top leadership; those fish stunk from the head down in Univision and Nielsen’s case.
Since then, both companies have undergone ownership and numerous leadership changes, so there is no animus now. But I still have what I consider a healthy distrust and almost disdain of many corporations these days, even though I work with some good ones.
Corporations are made up of people, and people can be ethical or unethical, as we know. However, the existence of a large bureaucratic corporation whose sole purpose is to maximize profitability can result in otherwise decent people doing very indecent things, like lying and causing harm, while excusing it as “just doing my job” (Ahem, Facebook?).
That’s a lazy cop-out, and Nielsen Media Research represented that lazy-minded might = right attitude to the extreme. So, it was a joy to hit them with potshots and harangue them. Yes, I enjoyed shaming them in the press any chance I got. I also enjoyed putting up our Help Change TV stickers on the light poles near their offices. Hence, their head of public relations, who regularly counter-attacked me in the press, could see I was NOT giving up.
And in a way, even though I no longer feel anything but amusement in relaying this little story, by telling it, I’m still fighting in my little David vs. Goliath way to an enemy that no longer exists for a cause that is no longer applicable.
But looking back, I realize now that I took those lessons learned in the fight and used them to fuel my businesses and Raw Travel to whatever level of success we have attained and to become whatever it is I have and am becoming now. I am outspoken. That has never changed, but it was ratcheted up a notch after the “Help Change TV” experience.
And then I found Punk Rock. It was late in life, yes, but I realized I’ve been a punk rocker this entire time.
Today, if there’s even a whiff of disrespect or disingenuous behavior from someone from a corporation, I’ll immediately take a fighting stance, and that is both good and bad. It benefits and hurts me. Like most strengths, it is also one of my biggest weaknesses—a sharp, double-edged sword that cuts both ways.
So I corral it, fight battles that matter more to more people (i.e., things with a more important goal than simply advancing my business for personal gain), and do it in a way that makes me happy.
A happy warrior is the bravest kind. My fight with Nielsen taught me that going into battle with a smile on your face, a song on your lips, and a righteous feeling in your heart about doing the right thing means you’ve already achieved victory—regardless of the outcome.
Post Script: Nielsen did not change its methodology until years after I sold American Latino Syndication, when the media business and demographics of TV viewers dramatically changed.
