Retail TV and Online Advertising Work Better Together

August 25, 2009

For the first time, the effectiveness of using TV and online advertising in tandem has been examined in depth.  A pioneering new study conducted by Q Media Research in the UK has shown that using TV and online together is significantly more effective for advertisers than using either in isolation. 

The study concluded that using the two media together does provide a very powerful combination across the whole process … from telling consumers about a brand they never heard of before … to helping them decide on which brands are more relevant to them.

Although it’s not always the case, the relationship does tend to flow from TV to online with TV sparking initial interest, awareness and “talkability” about a brand.   With online providing consumers with the additional information they need to aid in decision making and purchase.

This particular combination is very powerful in raising purchase consideration with retail TV advertising generally starting the process and online completing it.

 Other key findings from the study include:

  •  Using TV advertising and online together results in 47% more positive feelings about a brand than using either in isolation. 
  • The likelihood of buying or using a product increases by more than 50% when TV and online are used together. 
  • 48% of the sample group of 3,000 respondents watched TV while online, most days. Going online was second only to eating for activities that people do while the TV is on. 
  • The findings reinforce the need to ensure creative synergy between TV and online advertising:
    • TV and Online campaigns need to have a consistent theme/message.
    • The strength of each media needs to be maximized (TV for excitement and impact. Online for interaction and personalized engagement).
    • There needs to be a high level of visual synergy between the two mediums.
    • Rather than use online as a reach medium, it should be used to target those who have already seen the TV advertising as a way of extending the campaign message.

Graph for Post #15

Guy Phillipson, CEO of the Internet Advertising Bureau, had this to say:

“This important study delivers clear evidence of just how powerful and effective the TV and online combination is. In all the categories we tested, the results were very positive for both ‘soft’ brand measures and ‘hard’ purchase intent scores.”

Click here to read entire study.

 

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The Gap replaces retail TV budget with Web and Social Media

August 23, 2009

Picture for Post #14After reading about The Gap’s new online advertising campaign, I was left yearning for the days where retail advertising had a more concrete purpose – like maybe selling something.  

 

 

 

 

I thought agencies were about developing engaging strategies to increase sales and market share.  And I thought those who were responsible for such strategies had some accountability when it came to delivering results.

If the new Gap strategy is any indication – my thinking may have been wrong.  

The new ad campaign from The Gap, titled “Born to Fit,” includes no TV commercials instead, for the first time in the retailer’s history, The TV budget has been replaced with Web and Social Media – more specifically Facebook.  Print, cinema and outdoor ads have been developed to drive consumers to the campaign’s Facebook page.

Always open to new ideas … I eagerly logged onto The Gap’s Facebook page. After a few seconds, I clicked onto the video section, expecting to hear why people like wearing Gap jeans.  Instead I was treated to a short video from seven so-called celebrity “icons” – each one yammering on and on about the complexities of their “intriguing” lives.  

As they speak, each “icon” (and I use this world loosely) is sitting on a stool against a white background while the camera – occasionally – pans down to the Gap jeans they are wearing.  By the time I watched all of them, I wasn’t sure if The Gap wanted me to buy a pair of jeans or question my place in the universe.

Julie Channing, senior account director with The Gap’s digital agency explains the strategy this way, “We were really looking to reach out to fashionistas and influence audiences to start a conversation about how Gap has built this line of denim from the ground up.”

Really?  So, consumers are going to visit a Facebook page and soon after begin conversing with friends and family about the development of a new brand of blue jeans?

Channing goes on to say, The Gap had set no numerical benchmarks to determine success in the campaign, but rather would look at “how much consumers interact with the brand” to gauge ROI.

So, let me make sure I understand this – The Gap’s ROI objective is to count how many people are talking about jeans, not how many are buying them.

Don’t you just love how some companies are using social media?

 

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Retailers: TV is More Engaging than Internet and Mobile

August 21, 2009

Picture for Post #11Although it makes common sense, it’s still nice to see a study that confirms what a lot of us already knew:  For retailers especially, television presents a more effective commercial environment than the Internet or mobile devices. 

A new report from the research firm NeuroFocus found that TV earns high marks for emotional engagement, message recall and intent to purchase.  While on the other hand, viewers of small-screen media (Internet and mobile) found the ad experience to be less immersive and not nearly as engaging as TV. 

“Emotional response appears to be tied to the way people use different media platforms,” said Clay Collier, Cable & Telecommunications Association’s VP of Research.

He adds, “TV is particulary good at striking an emotional cord and conveying a sense of novelty. If you want to draw someone in and create an immersive environment, TV is a better fit.”

“On the small screen (mobile devices), certain emotional triggers – facial expressions, for example – are somewhat undermined,” said Clay.

(Somewhat undermined? On a three inch cell phone screen, you’d be lucky enough to discern a face, let alone facial expressions.)

The study also found that TV and Mobile ads were particularly effective at prompting a sale.  Not so for Internet ads, which appear to require repeated exposure before eliciting a consumer response.

On the emotional engagement scale, Internet ads came in last by a wide margin. 

“It stands to reason that people who are less emotionally invested in your ad may be less likely to buy your product,” said Tim Brooks, a former Lifetime Network Research Director.

I told you this was common sense … 

 

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Retailers: Think Twice Before Cutting Back Your Ad Spending

August 18, 2009

Picture for Blog #9A new study by ThinkVine, a Cincinnati analytics firm, offers evidence that cutting out ad spending during a recession can have harmful consequences.  

The firm that does predictive media modeling for marketers such as PepsiCo, and Colgate-Palmolive, found that although companies can usually get away with cutting media spending in the short term; cutbacks over 16 weeks can start to erode sales volume. 

The firm analyzed the effects of turning off all advertising entirely for a year on one unnamed brand.  It then studied the effects of turning it back on the next year at prior levels.  Here’s what they found: 

  • For about 16 weeks, sales volume was about the same. 
  • By the end of year one, however, sales volume was about 20% lower without advertising than with it. 
  • Turning the advertising back on in year two, reversed the sales decline as the brand began growing again at the same rate before the advertising was stopped. 
  • However, the advertising was not able to close the gap in sales compared with what it would have achieved had it maintained media spending for both years. 

Different brands respond differently to media cuts, but for many – getting back sales and share lost from cutting budgets can be a lengthy and an expensive process. 

ThinkVine CEO, Damon Ragusa, said it best:

“The cost of getting back what you lose is often greater than the savings of not advertising.”

 

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Are TV Ads Still Effective for Retailers?

August 17, 2009

50s TV commercialYou bet they are!

A study of 388 case histories by the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) found that TV is not only effective, but it is possibly even more effective when it comes to increasing sales.

In today’s complicated world “TV ads help simplify the buying decision, said Joel Robinson,” ARF’s Chief Research Officer.

“People want to zone out and watch TV and relax and let the communications wash over them. TV is an extension of the brand experience.”

Robinson said, the findings concluded that “units sold numbers increased as a result of increased TV impressions.” He added, “When you see it across 388 case histories, I think you’ve got to believe it.”

The report titled, Empirical Evidence of TV Advertising Effectiveness was an analysis of case histories gathered from seven different research agencies from 1990 – 2008.

The study also concluded that TV was #1 in terms of raising brand awareness.

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Attention Retailers: TV Still Leads Internet

August 14, 2009

A Forrester Research study reported in Mediaweek recently has found the “heady days of steep upticks in Internet use appear to be over.”

After experiencing steady growth from 2004 – 2007, time spent online has plateauted in 2008 at about 12-hours a week, unchanged from the year before.

Television still leads the Internet and every other medium in the study with an average of 13 hours of viewing a week.

Mediaweek also noted that over the 5-year period in which the Internet showed its greatest growth, TV remained unchanged as Internet usage came at the expense of other media.

In that period, time spent with radio declined by 18%, newspaper time fell by 17% and magazines lost 6%.

Graph for Post #7

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Retail Television Advertising Still Makes Sense

August 13, 2009

Why do retail advertisers continue to spend 46% of their ad budgets on television advertising? And only 7% on the Internet?

Graph for Post 5

It makes perfect sense to me. TV commands such a lion share of the nation’s media spending because it deserves to. After all is said and done, it comes down to results. No amount of wishful thinking can change the fact that TV advertising produces better “brand building” results than any other media platform, including the Internet.

Don’t know about you, but I could of swore I saw the Geico Gecko and that creepy, but effective Burger king character for the first time on TV.

With that said, the Internet is a powerful complement to traditional mass media when it comes to providing consumers with in-depth information on a product or service. It’s weakness; however, is its inability to transform a brand promise into a brand personality. For that – nothing beats the sight, sound and action of a 30-second television commercial.

TV is not dead and it’s not dying. There’s too much evidence out there for anyone with slightest bit of intellectual honesty to deny.

You don’t have to look any further than online video consumption to realize that television is more than holding its own in the digital age. Are people really abandoning their 50 inch plasmas in favor of viewing downloaded video content onto their laptops and cell phones? Or are they spending all their time on YouTube watching one of the thousands of insipid videos submitted each and every day? Perhaps some are, but it’s far from being a groundswell – even among the young.

According to the latest Nielsen Media Research Study on media usage, 18-24 year-olds are watching just under 5 ½ minutes of online video a day versus 3 ½ hours of TV daily.

As Andy Donchin, the director of national broadcast for Carat, the largest media buying service in the world put it:

“traditional media is still very strong and a great influencer. You need to get immersed in digital, but traditional media is still doing the heavy lifting.”

I couldn’t have said better myself…

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TV is Still the Biggest Cannon for Retail Marketers

August 11, 2009

artygun8“TV is still the biggest cannon in the land” That’s what Steve Boal, the CEO of Coupons.com said when he launched his first TV campaign in the company’s 11-year history on August 1st.

The campaign features three humorous commercials that remind recession-strapped consumers that Coupons.com is the place to “Click. Print. Save.”

Based on testing with the company’s subsidiary online brands, Boal found that TV advertising proved “extremely cost effective.” (Imagine that.)  He even went a step further and credited the TV initiatives for “creating more brand affinity than their online initiatives.” (How can that be?)

“The response rate and the rate of return of those people who found out about us on TV was slightly higher than those who found out about us on the Internet,” said Boal. (Whoa! I’m speechless…this can’t be happening.)

Actually, it’s been happening for the last half century. Start off with a good product or service that people want, add in a dash of creativity, mix in the ultimate mass media platform and presto….you have the perfect recipe for what every advertiser is really searching for: Results.

Nothing takes a brand to the next level like TV. 

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TV is Far from Dead for Retailers

August 7, 2009

television-is-dead

While the internet and social media elites rant and rave about the death of television advertising, the facts tell a much different story.

A July 2009 Harris Poll learned that more Americans found TV commercials helpful when making purchasing decisions than any other media source. An impressive 37% to be exact.  17% of the survey respondents said newspaper ads were useful and 3% said radio.  Internet banner ads, on the other hand, were mentioned by the fewest people – a paltry 1%.

It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago we were being told that banner ads would revolutionize the advertising landscape.  I may add, by the same folks who have been beating us over the head with the “TV’s Dead” mantra.   

In fairness though, not everyone has become bleary-eyed from the new media cool-aid.  Carol Krol, eMarketer senior analyst, admits that “TV still does the best job of reaching a critical mass of customers.”  She adds “It remains the most effective way to boost brand awareness.” 

Need more proof that TV is still alive and kicking, just ask a teenager.  According to a report titled “How Teens Use Media,” teens are watching more television than ever before, up 6% over the past five years.  In between all that texting and twittering, the typical teenager still found over 104 hours a month to watch good old fashioned TV. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not negating the impact of online media.  It’s a new and powerful communication tool (as proof by this blog), but it needs to be put through the same tests as you would with any traditional media vehicle.  In the end, some of it will work and some of it won’t.  If anyone tells you differently – run away. 

 Following every new media trend that comes along can have costly consequences – just ask those who invested heavily in banner ads.  I bet some of them now wished TV wasn’t dead …

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