MILLER, MANZE take revitalized `Friends' to bank for NBC

NBC's John Miller and Vince Manze knew their campaign for this season's "Friends" had hit its stride when it was spoofed by the network's "Saturday Night Live." The pair, co-presidents of the NBC Agency, the in-house agency for the General Electric Co.-owned network, helped "Friends" see a resurgence this year. It employed a series of emotional spots that featured music by Enya and highlighted Rachel's pregnancy and Joey's growing love for her. (The "SNL" spoof has Monica and her brother Ross falling in love, as a voice-over explains, "We're kind of running out of combinations.") As a result, this season's "Friends" is the No. 1 network show-garnering a season-to-date 15.3 rating/24 share through Feb. 24, and among adults 18 to 49 a 12.0 for the same time period, according to Nielsen Media Research. Last year, "Friends" earned a 12.9/21 for the entire season. The ratings boost for the eight-year-old "Friends" is just one reason Advertising Age is honoring NBC as an Entertainment Marketer of the Year. After spending $150 million in promotions for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, NBC hit the Olympics jackpot, overdelivering to advertisers with ratings, generating a 19.2 rating for the entire Games, according to Nielsen, almost 14% better than the rating it promised advertisers. It also had solid programming debuts with "Crossing Jordan" and the sitcom "Scrubs." "In a year when we were supposed to be in a dead heat with Fox for ages 18-49 leadership, we will win the season in that category by 20% or more," says Mr. Miller. After March 16, the executive says that NBC "will have won 40 of 48 prime-time weeks dating back to last April with only big events beating us [World Series, Super Bowl, Oscars and the like]. We will win the season in adults 18 to 49... but also in total viewers. With that much positive ratings news, the money usually follows... and it is." And "Friends" obviously played a big part of this ratings story. The spots, for what was widely expected to be "Friends' " last season, were a departure from Messrs. Manze and Miller's trademark wisecracking promos of the past that emphasized comedic situations rather than story line. "It was not as much as a creative effort as a marketing decision," says Mr. Miller. "It's always about the show." "We changed focus from comedy to add a slight serialized story line and to add drama," adds Mr. Manze. "In this case, the show seemed to lend itself to almost doing it as a 22-episode [story] arc, and we decided to take advantage of that." Messrs. Miller and Manze, who for several weeks were up against the third installment of CBS' powerful reality series "Survivor," milked the "Friends" romantic story line for all it was worth. "We pride ourselves at getting a little bit more out of every event in order to get dominant leads in a category," Mr. Miller says. "We work with programming to make sure we create events so we can promote them." Additionally, the duo believes in hyping guest stars and building up life-changing episodes. Mr. Manze even joked that they relaunched Enya's career with their promos. (Enya did coincidentally have a hit album in 2001.) It's an approach that has paid off. As a result, NBC renegotiated with the cast of "Friends" for another year. But Mr. Miller is modest about the role he and Mr. Manze played. "The show creatively had a rebirth. We marketed the rebirth as effectively as we could."

MILLER, MANZE take revitalized `Friends' to bank for NBC

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