Commentary: Brand Marketing the First Private National Commercial TV Station in Central Europel

Describes how, three years after the fall of the communist government in Czechoslovakia, NOVA, the first privately owned commercial television station in Central Europe began broadcasting throughout the recently formed Czech Republic. The primary challenge was to position the new station successfully as a clearly differentiated brand in a market which had never previously experienced television as anything other than a government‐controlled commodity. The station′s management sought to establish itself with the Czech television audience as the nation′s broadcast brand of choice by utilizing substantial numbers of Hollywood hit motion pictures and popular US television series, as well as presenting news shows which were significantly more irreverent and independent than the competing government‐sponsored stations. Prior to launch, the station management executed the most intense national advertising and promotion campaign ever utilized to promote a media product in the Czech Republic.