Fox Weather executives know the outlet’s audience will tune in when severe conditions hit their region. Now they are working on ways to get them to stick around when conditions are calm.
On Wednesday, the broadband outlet will feature a “Beach House” scene sponsored by lifestyle fashion outlet Tommy Bahama, which is known for its summer clothes and beachwear. Viewers will get to see the retailer’s flagship New York store. “We are continuing to do the show we would have done in the studio,” says Jason Hermes, vice president of marketing and client partnership sales, during a recent interview. “But we are doing it from a backdrop” that will put viewers in mind of kicking off the summer.
This isn’t Fox Weather’s first foray into weaving advertisers into its programming. Earlier in the year, the outlet tapped outdoors retailer Eddie Bauer to sponsor “Ski House” settings, and Hermes says there is an effort to focus on football tailgates in the fall that could use a central sponsor.
At Fox Weather, part of Fox News Media, the new sponsored segments are seen as something that can keep viewers coming even when news isn’t in breaking mode, which may contain worrisome images of severe weather. “A lot of brands are very skeptical running commercials around news and not being able to control what’s going on” says Hermes. “But there are things we can control that are still editorially driven.”
Fox Weather has placed new emphasis in recent months on retaining viewers who first visit due to breaking news, says Sharri Berg. The outlet keeps correspondents on the ground in areas affected by weather after winds and rains have stopped, she says, so they can tell the story of how communities rebuild. “That’s been a big differentiator for us,” she notes. “We don’t parachute in and leave.”
Fox Weather launched in 2021, a bid to capture the interest of viewers as extreme weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes and heat spikes are projected to become more common. There are plenty of weather-news options for consumers, who have long been familiar with Allen Media’s Weather Channel. Fox, however, built Fox Weather with modern media users in mind; the service is available on outlets ranging from YouTube TV to Amazon Fire, as well as a mobile app. At times, Fox Weather is simulcast on Fox-owned TV stations and even Fox Business and Fox News.
Neither Tommy Bahama or Eddie Bauer is the biggest of video advertisers, but the four-year-old Fox Weather captured the interest of marketing executives by offering to align their messages with seasonal events to help drive sales. Media outlets that have yet to reach full maturity often have the capacity to test things for sponsors that more established venues would not. In 2005, for example, a cable network once known as VH1 Classic hooked consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble by letting it run both vintage and modern adds for its Pepto-Bismol during a program that featured both old and current videos from pop musicians. The network, then owned by Viacom, let kosher foods manufacturer Manischewitz sponsor a Passover-themed program that featured Jewish rock stars sitting around a Passover Seder table.
The early days of a media outlet can often be the ones when longstanding advertising alliances are formed. Marketers who get in early with nascent media properties can often win favorable rates or hard-to-secure integrations, and a relationship built in the first years of existence can develop into something bigger as time marches on.
Fox Weather’s Hermes says he had a long list of potential clients to call for the Summer House concept. Tommy Bahama was the first. By the time he had finished making an initial outreach to one of the company’s marketing executives, he says, he knew he wouldn’t have to call anyone else.
