A little Pumbaa told me an interesting tid-bit recently:

During the first week of performances of the national tour of The Lion King in each city, the local ABC affiliate does a half-hour television special on the arrival of the show, featuring interviews with cast members, a behind the scenes look at the costumes and scenery, etc.

It’s a half-hour commercial that doesn’t look like a commercial, because it “teaches” the audience about the show in a news format.

How come everyone doesn’t do this?

Well, maybe it’s because not every Producer owns a television network.

Yep, in case you didn’t know, Disney owns ABC.

Ahh, the wonderful world of leverage.

Don’t get depressed because you think you’ll never have a list of subsidiaries longer than the lines at Space Mountain.

There are all sorts of levers out there of various shapes and sizes:  restaurants, limo companies, charities, dentists, etc. Anywhere that has a consumer base similar to yours.

Your job, find a partner that can benefit from promoting you and vice-versa.

You’ll find it much more economical, and the promotion will actually mean more to the consumer, because it’s comes from a vendor that already has their trust (like a news station).

So until you own a television network, find a way to exploit the levers that you do have or go out and find a few.

Because leverage is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.