• by July 11, 2005

WE'VE BEEN KEEPING AN EYE ON DENNIS, BUT WHERE'S THE MENACE? -- As far as media storms go, Dennis is proving to be an especially media-savvy one. Not only did he make news by being first in what is turning out to be an unusually early hurricane season but he timed his arrival to coincide with an opportunistic ebb in the news cycle that followed the London bombings. He's even got a name destined for banner headlines: Dennis The Menace. And he's really powerful too. We're not sure exactly what "category three" means in meteorological terms, but in media parlance, it translates into the "lead news story" on the Eastern Seaboard.

Dennis is so powerful, in fact, that some of the most powerful media and marketing concerns are swirling all around him - not the other way around. And it's not just the usual suspects like local broadcast stations and The Weather Channel, but one with the 120-mile per hour channel marketing might of Wal-Mart. In fact, Wal-Mart shoppers in affected states like Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, can get wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Dennis even if they no longer have any walls. Premiere Retail Networks, which programs the Wal-Mart TV Network in those states, has cut a deal to air The Weather Channel's coverage of Dennis' progress in 250 of the mass retailers' stores in the region. "Our policy is to switch over the Wal-Mart TV Network to live feeds from other media sources during events that affect national matters of safety and emergencies to ensure everyone has the information they need," explains Wal-Mart's Senior Media Director Troy Steiner about the unusual cross-promotion.

Naturally, the National Association of Broadcasters and important disaster relief organizations like the American Red Cross are at the eye of this storm, parsing out a deluge of 10-, 25- and 30-second PSAs via satellite and over the Web to warn citizens in troubled areas, and to capitalize on the typhoon of benevolence that might follow the hurricane's path. Not surprisingly, the fund-raising spots feature the song "Bride Over Troubled Water."

In fact, the only real media trouble with Dennis may be the news media are depicting the hurricane itself. Most of the news clips we've seen make Dennis look more like a summer sun shower than a killer storm. And we're not alone.

"I've been watching these guys on the television news and the way they make it look, it doesn't look that bad out there," storms Rob Frydlewicz, vice president-media research at Carat Insight. "Yeah, it's windy, but I don't see roofs blowing off and trees knocking down. If I were watching that coverage I'd be wondering if it was really that bad and if I really needed to evacuate the area."