Two key benefits of TV advertising are: You can increase brand awareness and customer response. Reaching new customers can increase brand loyalty and reach new customers. It drives sales and responses. You could argue that all advertising benefits have at least one of these core advantages. What makes TV advertising different?
Why is TV so different? It’s all down to the power and message. It’s well-proven that video, which combines vision with sound, creates the most powerful advertising messages. Then there’s the impact! Within 30 seconds, a single TV advertisement can reach millions of people. I doubt that Google or Facebook could reach 8 million people in the UK in just 30 seconds.
You may be thinking, “Yeah but isn’t it really costly?” You would be wrong. You can spend millions of dollars on TV advertising, but you can also spend much less.
What is TV Advertising’s greatest benefit?
Its greatest benefit is, I believe, its low cost. A TV advertisement’s average view cost is less than half a cent, or 0.5p. Digital video is typically 4x cheaper than TV ads, starting at 2p per view.
It is more affordable because TV has such an enormous daily, weekly and monthly audience. TV advertising costs are determined by supply (the total viewers in a region or channel) and demand (the total advertising budgets of the advertisers who wish to advertise on this channel or audience).
Supply vs. Demand
Example: 600 million viewers / 30 million ads spend = PS10CPT, or cost per thousand viewers.
Supply vs. demand = cost
Advertising is cheaper if there are more viewers of TV, but a drop in viewing will increase the cost.
This increases the price if there is a lot of demand, like around Christmas. However, if there is less demand (e.g. in the summer months) or because of external factors like COVID, the price will drop.
The COVID Effect
The TV market has reduced its price automatically due to COVID. You don’t have to get huge discounts in order save money. In some months, the price of TVs has fallen by as much as 50% due to less demand.
Advertisers can take advantage of this by advertising more when it is cheaper. This will allow them to get more value for their money.
Television Advertising Offers Many Options!
Choice is another advantage! You can advertise on multiple channels. SKY Media has over 150 channels. ITV1 offers regional options, as well as its own digital channels. Channel 4 has a mixture of digital channels as well as some macro targeting options.
Sky has so many channels, it can mean that there are some channels with very low viewing figures. This means that the entry cost for an advert can be as low at PS3 per 30 second advertisement. You can also buy a Coronation St national advertisement on ITV, reaching close to 8,000,000 viewers. This advert costs thousands of pounds and only one.
Geo-targeting is available on ITV1. You can advertise in London or the northeast of England, or in a combination of both, to reflect your store locations.
Television Advertising Trackable
It’s possible to track TV responses. This is due to the reach and impact of the ads. You will see a response within minutes if your advert is placed in a prominent spot during the day. It’s simple to calculate your cost per response if you know the price of the advert and how many responses you got.
TV Advertising Delivers Fame & Trust
It’s a given that if an advertisement is shown on television, it must be true. You can’t claim that they are false. We know when we see a deal or a savings that it is genuine. It gives the impression that your business has a lot of success, and that it is expensive. Advertisers can benefit from this and it is why advertisers should advertise in any economic downturn. Your business will be more trusted by viewers even if the economy isn’t performing well.
What are the disadvantages of TV advertising?
Television advertising has a major disadvantage: I believe that the production time for a TV advertisement can be slow. The legal clearance process can be difficult for most advertisers, especially if the production company has not had much experience in clearing TV commercials.
It can be confusing. There are many technical terms that advertisers may not have used before. TVR’s, or television ratings, are the currency we trade in. This is an industry standard, and it’s easy to understand. However, for some people it can be too complicated.
The cost of advertising can rise rapidly. You can purchase ads starting at PS3 for as low as 50k, but you can also buy single ads starting at 50k. How do you know if you are getting a great deal or paying the right amount? Is it too much or too little? It’s up to the TV advertising agency to handle this.
This is What TV Advertisers Don’t Know!
You get what you pay for. Television broadcasters can’t predict how many people will see your advertisement tonight until it has gone out. Therefore, they use an estimate to determine the audience and may underestimate or overestimate your delivery.
After the campaign is over, you won’t be able to tell. A TV campaign that costs 20k could yield 22k or 18k in value. It doesn’t gain or lose value, but it becomes trade credit or debt. If it’s short, I can ask for more value in a future campaign. If it is longer than I expect, I might have to deliver less on a future campaign.
A Good Agency Does the Right Job
It is to ensure that the value of your product or service is maintained as equal as possible. Agents will sometimes overdeliver in order to audit for higher discounts than they actually buy. This can lead to a grey area. Is the discount you are getting really what you expected?
Television Advertising: Is it for everyone?
It depends. It all depends. Is your website converting well? Are you able to build a strong digital presence? Combining retargeting campaigns with TV and PPC campaigns can produce amazing results. This can often reduce the cost of your PPC by half.
Do you target B2B or B2C rather than both? There are TV options for B2B, but B2C businesses will often reap the greatest benefits.
Is your brand in need of a makeover? This could be combined with new TV messages and creatives.
While cost is important, I have already shown that there are many affordable options for TV. However, if you wish to promote multiple retail locations in different ITV1 areas then it can quickly rise to six figures.
It’s more like a checklist. Are you in the right place to make TV work for you to reap the greatest benefits?
Why do some people write off TV advertising?
Television advertising is often criticized for being too costly without thinking. This is my pet hate. When I talk to advertisers about how affordable TV advertising can become, they realize that it should be part of their marketing plan.
What kind of return or ROI will I get from TV advertising?
This is probably the most important question new advertisers want to answer. Although there are many case studies on the Thinkbox site, it shows TV advertising to be the most effective offline marketing channel with a ROI of approximately PS1.75. However, I doubt this is what advertisers really want.
Advertisers should work backwards. Based on your budget, how many sales would you need to reach your target? Consider how realistic this is. If you spend 50k and get 40 million views, you will need 4,000 sales to convert 0.1% of viewers. That sounds easy. Even better, you can say that if your conversion rate is 0.02 you’ve doubled the target.
What does success look like?
You can determine what success looks like, what it doesn’t, and if it is possible to achieve it. There are many other factors you should consider. The creative. Does it contain a strong call-to-action or offer? To name a few, your channel selection, the time of the day that you advertise, and the length of the advert.
Who is TV advertising most beneficial to?
From the many TV campaigns that I have worked on, I can’t find one advertiser who gets the greatest benefit. I have worked in many areas, including motor, retail, entertainment, financial services, travel, and home improvement. They all did exceptionally well on TV.
How Success Looks to Us
My preference is response-driven/sales driven. This is ultimately how advertisers measure success. As an agency, I love to be able show data. We did X and it generated Y. Although it doesn’t capture the entire effect of TV advertising, this gives you an idea of how your performance.
Clients often tell me that it is best to look at the whole picture. Realistically, all of your marketing should be in tangent and complementing each other. This allows you to see how much business has been generated vs marketing spend and gives you a clear view of your performance.
This is crucial because TV advertising requires that not all people respond within a certain time period. Half of people will respond when it is convenient for them. They also feel that they need your product or service. Part of this process is being exposed to your advertisement multiple times.
