Horatio jumped the shark.

Normally my wife and I share television preferences. We love Studio 60. We like Law and Order. We tolerate Heroes. But CSI Miami suits my wife’s palate while I think it’s a dish best left un-served. I’d rather degrease my bike than watch CSI Miami. It wasn’t always that way. Initially, we would watch the show if only to make fun of the patronizing portrayal of the clichéd southern belle turned cop and the airhead kid who looks like the happenstance of being a crime investigator just happened to be a convenient detour from following the Warped Tour. That, and the dauntingly dramatic dumb-dumb Horatio. It’s worth watching CSI Miami if only to make fun of Horatio.

Horatio is not your typical cop. He looks like the Mad Magazine spokes-cartoon Alfred E. Newman except he wears all black and cheesy sunglasses. Horatio does have one superpower, however. He can instantly and powerfully pick the most stupid one-liners to follow each pocket of drama, and he delivers these lines in a voice that one might imagine Don Corleone’s pillow talk might have sounded. It’s kind of like Schwarzenegger’s cheesy deliveries of “I’ll be back” or “He had to blow off some steam!” (famously said in Commando after he impales an enemy into a boiler and steam rushes out of the pipe). So imagine Schwarzenegger but 130 pounds lighter, seven shades paler, bright red hair and instead of having Arnold’s famously tough character names like John Matrix, John Kimble, “Dutch" Schaefer, and the ultimate, Conan the Barbarian, Horatio rolls off the tongue of toughness into the sink. Hey, don’t get your feelings hurt: movie tough guys don’t get names like Jeff either.

But I don’t care that Horatio dresses like he works at a New York ad agency. I don’t really mind that he sounds like he’s gargling hot asphalt. I can tolerate the fact that he delivers his lines with the proficiency of an understudy in the Folsom State Prison Christmas play.

I didn’t give up on Horatio until he jumped the shark.

Within a forgettable plot, Horatio is on a hill with a sniper rifle. (Remember, he is a crime scene investigator that works in a lab.) A terrorist-driven box truck comes over the hill to assault freedom, and Horatio, with a single shot, blows the truck into a million bits. He probably had some kitschy line like “light my fire” as well, but I stopped listening

That, my friends, is a textbook case of jumping the shark.

Jumping the shark is a not-so-old term used to describe when a television program has run out of good ideas and is on bad idea life support. Like the fact the hit hospital drama ER has resorted to helicopter crashes and hospital shootings in every episode just to keep things interesting. The original shark jump can be attributed to Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz. Apparently, Happy Days ratings were not so happy and writers decided that one solution to raise interest would be to have Fonzie compete in a water skiing contest during which he would jump a shark. Yes, he would jump a shark. Henceforth, television programs with endless plot extensions, characters returning from the dead multiple times and successive episodes of at least one character in the reoccurring cast getting shot are said to have jumped the shark. And now you know.

But we can’t save such a fun term just for TV. I mean, come on, TV already has its exclusives like telethons and Ryan Seacrest. Is TV really the only place were a shark gets jumped? I’ll answer the question with a question. Remember when Buick resurrected Harvey Earl to hawk their cars? As if the only answer to fading brand excitement was to bring old Harvey back from the dead. Yeah, cleared the shark by two feet.

And how do you drag an old barn side American brand like Maxwell House into the new millennium? Well, you keep the hokey imagery but then have good ole red-blooded Americans sing a British pop song with enthusiasm not seen since Designing Women jumped the shark all those years ago. Look out sharks, Maxwell House coming over head!

It’s not hard for a brand to jump the shark in its marketing. It is difficult to find the right mix and chemistry for a marketing plan, so it is understandable that marketers might want to dance with the one that brought them. But brands do age and unlike sharks, they don’t always have a second set of teeth to take a bite out of the competition when opportunity avails. Simply put, relevance to the consumer must be kept relevant. However, it is important to know that such a shark jumping demise is not imminent for a brand. Had Fonzie meandered down another plot line with interest, perhaps he never would have come anywhere near the sign up table for the water skiing contest.

Brands can insulate themselves from sharks and waterskiing contests by performing a few thoughtful tasks.

1) Don't make any sudden movements.

Brands often grow stale and therefore feel forced to make knee-jerk reactions. The results are often undesirable. Instead, marketers should consider brand planning as a long-term strategy which evolves in the market. Of course, all this could be eliminated by continually refreshing the brand. Which brings up……

2) Review the brand continuously.

The exercise of reviewing a brand and its relevance to the consumer is not like going to the dentist twice a year. It needs to be done daily. All efforts that are meant to be touch points with consumers need to be reviewed with the brand for relevance and then the brand itself needs to be evaluated with the different opportunities and products. It is crucial to gauge consumer attitudes for each touch point. Marketers are wise to update and refresh their brands and to glean new insight with every single interaction they have with the consumer.

3) Know thy true self.

Brands have a tendency to think of themselves within the context of their founding or heyday. This is a mistake. It is important to understand the role of the brand in the consumer's life and how that role functions in the present day and the days to come.

An important note: Points 1 and 2 are different. Point 1 refers to strategy which should be rooted, strong and hard to change. Point 2 refers to tactics which should be updated with time. It is important to point this out, as many companies change strategy at every coffee break but keep a tactic for some faux nostalgia they insist consumers have.

Want to be in a water skiing contest?

All businesses age, and the ones that are successful through multiple decades have a commitment to learn from every interaction. The greater message here is for marketing to get the same tinkering and refining as R&D does. Manufacturing is improved by R&D to save money and effort. So can be the effort of continued improvements of functioning and relevance to consumers.

The alternative is to suck the potency out of the brand and allow it to expire into irrelevance. You may try to reenergize the brand and jumping that shark may not seem like that bad of an idea. Just remember, even if Fonzie had won the water skiing contest with his amazing and flawless shark jump, Happy Days still lost.




Snowden Tatarski is a brand consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation of the whole brand experience. The agency offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising creative development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com