Barkley-Lewis Steers TBS Growth

In the quest to create clutter-busting marketing and promotional strategies, Constance Barkley-Lewis tends to anthropomorphize the TBS Superstation. "I'm always asking, 'If TBS were a character actor, who would it be?'" Barkley-Lewis said. "It's about finding the voice."

That search will be top-of-mind with Barkley-Lewis, who recently was promoted to svp-marketing for the cable network, bumping up from vp-entertainment marketing. The current TV environment--a plethora of niche and broad-based entertainment options--is testing marketers' creative mettle, she says. "The stakes are really high. You have to determine a position and then own it."

Barkley-Lewis took the same approach to her recent promotion; after serving as interim marketing head for three months, she wrote a job description full of strategies and goals, and submitted it to her boss, TBS president Bill Burke, who obviously liked what he saw. A top priority: her team is readying an image campaign concentrating on the net's strong suits of sports, World Championship Wrestling and movie events (original made-for-TV movies kick in next year), while looking for new ways to add value to advertisers.

Barkley-Lewis, a five-year TBS veteran, says the network will dive more aggressively into cross-promotions and merchandising as ways to gain vital off-channel exposure. The Dinner & a Movie franchise, for instance, will get a "music to cook by" CD with Rhino Records, in addition to its cookbooks, aprons and home videos. And opportunities will be rife, Barkley-Lewis said, on an upcoming series based on the net's Monkey-ed Movies shorts. "Anything we can do to provide a standout, standalone environment." she said. "The best way to build our business is to take our properties into areas where you don't usually find TV properties."

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