These days, many marketers are prioritizing digital over traditional media. While digital is great for hyper-targeting, customization, cost efficiency and measurement, traditional media shouldn’t be overlooked and that includes using TV. Here are just a few reasons why TV should be considered in your marketing plans:
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- AUDIENCE REACH. If you are a brand with a product that has mass appeal, like cars, food, beverages, banking, travel, fashion, phones and phone services, etc., television is a great medium to use, as it has tremendous reach. According to Nielsen, weekly reach of TV against Adults 18+ in the U.S. is a remarkable 88% and the amount of live TV they watch is in excess of 4 hours per day. This is far more than the 45 minutes spent on social media. While it is not impossible to reach more of a niche audience on TV, for example if you are targeting entrepreneurs and inventors, producing and buying spots on shows like “Shark Tank” or “The Profit” would work really well, digital’s hyper-targeting capabilities are better suited for narrow audiences.
- IMPACTFUL CREATIVE. On TV, your message lives in a much bigger environment than a digital ad. TV commercials are harder to ignore partially due to the sheer size of the screen they are played on. TV commercials run one ad at a time, versus in the digital space your ads are competing with a whole host of others right next to yours. Also, if the content in the spot is emotionally engaging, entertaining and/or relevant it has a high likelihood not to be skipped. According to Nielsen, “Since the days of the VCR and playback mode, a viewer could always skip through the commercials, and 15% of viewers do. Even now with DVRs in playback mode, 85% of viewers simply let shows playback, commercials and all.” Think of TV advertising as :15 – :30 video content that is seen and heard. Check out this :15 TV spot we did for Uncle Julio’s. Imagine it running on a 40″+ TV and you’ll understand why it captivated watchers and drove them into the restaurants to try this spectacular drink!
- NO FRAUD. Ad fraud in digital media is a big problem… still. Chinese click farms are real, and unwitting brands are losing roughly 33% of their media spend to fake impressions and clicks (Source: AdAge.com). This AdWeek article states, “P&G’s $200 million digital cut were reinvested into areas with ‘media reach’ including television, audio and ecommerce.” Digital ad fraud is one of the reasons P&G made this shift, which netted P&G a 10% lift in reach. With traditional, linear television, there is no ad fraud and when mistakes are made in the delivery they give the advertiser “make goods” so the dollars are never just gone. Keep in mind that streaming TV and OTT are now being targeted by fraudsters, so if avoiding fraud is important to you, linear TV is safest right now.
- AFFORDABLE COST. As with all advertising there are two sets of costs to consider. The cost of producing the creative and the cost of the media. Producing a high quality TV spot is never “cheap” but it can be done cost effectively. We have produced television spots for Uncle Julio’s for a fraction of what they expected by using non-union cinematographer, director, producer and on-screen talent. We also shoot 2 or 3 spots at a time for greater efficiency. For another client, Sikorsky Credit Union, we were able to put together a TV spot without doing a shoot at all, instead leveraging the great stock video that’s out there and keeping production costs extremely low. On the media side, instead of buying for quality, you can get great CPM’s (under $15) by buying remnant inventory, buying tonnage (getting as many eyeballs to see your commercial as possible), or looking at at cable only plan.
- HIGH EFFECTIVENESS. TV has the 2nd best return on ad spend (ROAS), giving advertisers back $6.50 for every $1.00 spent. We’ve seen TV to be highly effective for our Uncle Julio’s client, with each flight guest counts trend up. While digital search tops the charts it should be noted that it is inherently a bottom of the funnel conversion tactic. Not only is there a great return on television advertising, but ads seen on TV are considered to be far more relevant than those seen on social media, websites, and streaming video.
Like some of our clients, you too, may be surprised at how affordable and impactful TV can be. We’re happy to share more of our thoughts with you, just reach out.