These stations are spread out all over too: Eklins, WV; Pottsville, PA; Mckeesport, PA; Springfield, IL, Port Huron, MI; Tuscaloosa, AL; Roanoke, VA; Sacramento, CA and the sad, cursed town of Benton Harbor, MI. What happened here is that a company bulk mailed a large number of radio stations their catalog of promo items. Some large subset of them chose this customizable cook book. There are probably a couple pages in the front unique to each station, but the art and the rest is the same, with convenient a big white space to print on the Black & White station logo.
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Sure, crappy art, but a "fail"? Not necessarily. As you point out, these stations were spread out geographically, so it's not like two stations in the market competed with the same cookbook. That would be a fail, and probably the end of the promo company.
ReplyDeleteThe true fail was the stations, by taking the "easy" path to publishing, missed the full promotional opportunity possible with real community involvement -- nothing says community like Aunt Edna's tuna noodle casserole, huh? -- the cross-promotion possibilities with advertisers, schools, public venues, local organizations... A project like the community cookbook could have built a huge, long-term buzz and generated tremendous good will for the station.
But publishing is a learned art, and out of range of the skill sets for most stations, I imagine. It would require staff commitment for many hours that would be taken away from the broadcaster's real business.
For a single-station market, the canned approach to publishing wouldn't have been much of a loss, but it wouldn't have been much of a gain.
Making a cover better than this wouldn't require any particularly gifted skill set. Any one of them could have reached out to a local community college art class, or maybe reach out to their actual local community to generate the content. Sure that requires work, but that's the idea. Good things require effort.
ReplyDeleteDo you know for sure that all the pages inside the books are identical? I'm thinking that perhaps it's just the covers that are identical, as each company used a specific publishing company that had its own stock photos, and that perhaps each book contained individualized recipes, local ads, etc.
ReplyDeleteDamn good question. I'll find out when I unpack.
ReplyDeleteThank, Jose! I appreciate it. My dad (his professional name was "Bill Miller") was News Director of WTAX Radio station in Springfield, IL, for many years, so I'm pretty sure my parents had the WTAX cookbook. I don't remember what was inside the covers, however!
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