Toronto -- Changes are coming at Promax International,
acknowledged its president and CEO, Jim Chabin, during the group's annual marketing
and promotion conference here two weeks ago.
For one thing, Chabin felt that E! Entertainment Television
was onto something by convening a nearly four-hour marketing workshop for its
international broadcast and cable affiliates. He added that Discovery Communications Inc.
and News Corp. held similar workshops during Promax.
He predicted, "10 years from now, they'll all be
doing it."
Trying to get their non-U.S. affiliates to "do
consistent branding worldwide and to offer a consistent look and feel," he said,
"is [good] brand management."
In contrast, Chabin recalled, "five years ago,
branding was not important enough to discuss."
Promax's latest conference drew 6,738 attendees here
from the marketing and promotion ranks of the domestic and international cable and
broadcast industries. That's up from 6,550 last year, when the show was held in
Chicago, despite a drop in radio due to that industry's consolidation, he added.
About 17 percent of the total is international, with 35 percent of those in cable, Chabin
estimated.
The international segment may help to offset possible cable
slippage next year, he said, when Promax and the National Show will be back-to-back on the
calendar. Promax is set for June 9 to 12 in San Francisco, while the National Cable
Television Association's conference will be the following week, in Chicago -- a break
from its more typical May timing.
"Obviously, we would like more separation,"
Chabin observed, "but forewarned is forearmed. We hope to work around it."
Promax, he added, books well in advance --"five years out."
