First, ABC asked viewers to "Start Here." And now, NBC apparently wants America to "Chime In."
With no advance fanfare, NBC late last month began tagging the end of many of its on-air promotional spots with the slogan "Chime In." It's an extension of an idea introduced in January, when the network began playing its famous G-E-C musical cue at the end of almost all of its in-house hype.
Surprisingly in this age of viral marketing, there's little evidence of "Chime In" on the Internet. The slogan is nowhere to be found on NBC's own Web site, nor are there any major online video campaigns supporting the slogan. (The eagle-eyed users of Wikipedia and the TV blog Lost Remote both have brief mentions of the tagline).
One possible clue to NBC's intentions for "Chime in" might be in a video uploaded to Brightcove. It features videos of regular folks offering their own take on the NBC chimes. While the videos look homemade, they were actually shot by NBC staffers, a representative for the network said.
While the network, currently at fourth place in the ratings, declined to provide official comment on the initiative, it's not hard to imagine NBC using "Chime in" as a way of giving viewers ownership of the network or encouraging them to interact with NBC shows via viral videos or user-generated content.
NBC's decision to follow ABC and adopt an on-air slogan could mark a turning point for the networks. While slogans were once a given—think "Be There" or "You'll Love It!"—the Big Four pretty much abandoned the concept in the 1990s.
The last notable network slogan prior to "Start Here" was ABC's much-mocked "TV Is Good," which ran for a couple seasons starting in 1997. Also in 1997, Fox adopted the moniker "Just One Fox" for a while, though the slogan didn't get much attention. Likewise, although CBS would sometimes use "The Address Is CBS" or "It's All Here" as a slogan during the late 1990s and early 2000s, they weren't used as widely as the slogans on the 1970s and 1980s.
There's no word yet on whether ABC or NBC are planning to bring back two other once-common hallmarks of network marketing: The all-star promo shoot and the network theme song.
(Editor: Baumann)
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Fark 
StumbleUpon 
Comments (4)
You know . . . NBC had used the "Be There" slogan on numerous reality shows for the last two years. I was actually hoping they'd bring that campaign back.
Any campaign would suffice. That 1988 campaign of NBC's would be pretty appropriate if recycled right. They do have the Olympics and the Super Bowl.
Posted by Thurston Last | July 3, 2008 1:03 PM
Slogans and theme songs where just as important to the local affiliates. It gave us something to tag onto, and show that we were part of a bigger national thing. I go all the way back to NBCs "Our Pride is Showing" in the early 80s. Those slogans and theme songs were great for internal affiliate moral and helped to garner community awareness when local news personalities were able to be seen as equals to the nationals.
Posted by Martin Fiedler | July 6, 2008 7:34 AM
Here's an acronym to remember, "WGAF". It stands for "Who Gives A F*^k" and should be the starting and stopping point for any marketing campaign as in, "Who gives a f*&k about the NBC chimes and how much TV do they consume?" Instead of NBC wasting their time with something that fails the WGAF test how about sharing some interesting, relevant and authentic stories about NBC programming that fans of NBC can share with others.
Put another way, "Why does 30Rock always have to be so right when riffing on NBC?"
Posted by John | July 7, 2008 10:35 AM
A good read of the history of the NBC chimes at:
http://www.radioremembered.org/chimes.htm
Posted by Chimes | July 15, 2008 12:26 PM