TV is king. There you go, I said it. Does that make me an advertising dinosaur? Should I even say ‘advertising’?
Wasn’t this term assigned to the attic years ago; gathering dust next to ‘integrated’? Either way, the fact remains creating iconic TV ads, like the ones we all grew up with; is now a rarity.
Instead investing in social has for some brands, become a hygiene factor. A necessity. In the world of content dissemination, or whatever we’re calling it this week, we’ve seen the migration of spend to online and agencies continually changing their models to facilitate this.
The benefits of a greater spend online are undeniable – targeted, affordable and measurable, but we now witness clients drowning in never ending pressure to create fast consuming and quickly forgotten content. Surely there is a better balance?
Don’t get me wrong, Cheeky are huge content advocates, playing a vital role in the overall mix we rarely work on a response where content doesn’t feature heavily. However marketers keen to bring fame and growth to their brand aren’t giving TV enough consideration. Nowadays TV is busting a gut to be as efficient, targeted and measurable as online and, quite frankly, when you see your brands beautifully produced ad in all it’s glory on the big screen, there’s no better feeling.
Despite the momentous rise of video, we believe there is plenty of life in the old TV dog yet. When done well, in just 30 seconds, TV enables a brand to tell a story, captivate an audience, elevate their head above the parapet and most importantly build trust and authority. Then the core of the creative idea from the TV ad can of course live longer as content to continue to engage.
Need further convincing? Ebiquity econometric benchmarks show brands that outperform the market are those using creative executions on TV. More than any other media, TV advertising helps to reinforce memory structures. These memory structures are imperative to aiding shoppers decisions.
Nowadays going back to a test, learn and roll-out approach makes TV advertising available to small and medium sized brands. Regional TV testing is huge right now. A way to dip your toe in the water and roll a campaign out based on hard facts. For national campaigns, targeting the media through Adsmart or other digital channels, brings the media spend down drastically, you might forego reach, but you’ll minimise wastage.
It is these new ways of working that makes TV advertising accessible to brands who may have previously felt it outside of their reach.
But aren’t TV audiences dwindling? Don’t Millennials spend all their time online and does anyone even watch the adverts anymore? Yes all legitimate challenges, but easily overcome when you plan your media carefully, opt for platforms that only charge you when your TV ad has been viewed and extend your TV campaign with relevant online content.
According to Nielsen’s inaugural Millennials on Millennials report, traditional TV accounts for 66% percent of their total time viewing video. Interestingly, the Nielsen report also found that millennials are the least likely of all demographic groups to change the channel during ads. So they’re not averse to advertising, but their attention needs to be earned. For advertisers, this means creating compelling content, but also delivering it through all the relevant channels they spend time on.
Content is here to stay and rightly so, but open your eyes to how fast moving and disposable it can be. Perhaps in 2020 consider creating a more memorable piece of work, a piece of work that elevates you to a place you’ve not been for some years, something to show the grandkids… your next TVC. Then simply apply the same rules of online and book your media in a targeted, measurable and affordable way – and, of course, through Cheeky.
Long live TV.