TV Ads – 4; Digital – 0
The Association of National Advertisers conference is taking place in Scottsdale, AZ this weekend. It’s a great conference, with senior level marketing and advertising leaders from the largest advertisers in the US.
Being a digital advertiser, one would think the big topic would be the increasing way in which consumers have fragmented their approach to learning about brands – from search, to display, to blogs, to viral marketing. This morning’s sessions featured presentations from a number of CMOs of leading brands – McDonald’s, WalMart, MillerCoors and Verizon. They all gave excellent presentations on how they are building their brands – through that tried and true media form… the television commercial spot. TV ratings continue to slide. Viewership is particularly low with younger audiences, who embrace “new media” moreso than older populations. Innovation seems to mean focus on cultural segmentation (i.e., run TV ads in multiple languages). Conversations I’ve had show that the top issues being faced by the ANA Board of Directors are around negotiations with SAG actors for controlling TV ad creative development costs and how to get FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) to recognize goodwill on the balance sheet as the “value of marketing” – a classic issue that was being debated when I went to business school in 1994.
Survey question – what percentage of advertisers lowered spending in 2009? 51%. How many migrated media from traditional to digital? 14%. This is a symptom of being able to measure the impact to the bottom line – and when the going gets tough, the budgets get going. Clearly, marketers in general have not sold the benefits of marketing to the organization – CFO and CEO. Digital marketing in specific has not shown its value to the CMO – so hand wringing about the “accountability of digital and search” gets lost in these conversations.
The elephant in the room is how brand managers bring focus to this large scale transition of consumer brand awareness moving from TV to online. 74% of the audience says that they see marketing as an investment in the future of the brand. If the future is digital, and CMO’s aren’t talking about how they are planning for this, then predicting future winning and losing brands becomes straightforward.
This even fits into the ANA’s big issue – recognition of accounting goodwill. Best way to grow it? Focus on online brand building.
More to come from the afternoon sessions – which include IBM and Google. My prediction – they will bring this critical issue to the fore.
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2 comments
Hi Craig, I found your post to be somewhat redundant to other experts in the advertising world. Not to be said with disrespect because I think you’ve made some very valid observations. But being with an agency that focuses on direct response advertising – all forms of it both offline and online I’m growing weary of this online vs. offline debate. It’s not one or the other, rather the strategic planning of both based on the target audience you’re trying to reach and the action you are trying to get them to take.
There has been a tremendous movement over the last ten years in shifting budgets from offline to online. And having been in the business for 18 years now, I was one of the many online marketers who struggled, trying to fight for our piece of the budget and justifying spends. However, having been rooted in all forms media of media, I’ve come back around over the last 5 years to know it’s not all online and it’s not all offline. It’s the balance of both. If you’re building or strengthing a brand, there is no doubt that TV does an excellent job of that. And you can absolutely do that online. But you have a longer window of communication value on TV that you just can’t get online – except for frequency with banners (or paying very high CPMs for online video). But banners cannot compete with the communication value of a :30 or :60 commercial. TV does a great job of feeding the top of the funnel and growing the interest – as does online. Then online is the best source for harvesting those sales and getting a stronger read on metrics. Again it’s the combination of both. Based on your client’s budget, objectives, etc. we need to focus on solutions unique to their needs. There is not one or the other.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
P.S. TV viewership is actually up – to about 153 hours per month now. It is not declining. How people consumer TV is changing whether it be online or through time-shifted watching. But it’s not declining, it’s just evolving.
There’s some great information being shared here! I didn’t know that TV viewership is up to 153 hours per month. Thanks for sharing, Jana. And Craig, congratulations on writing a post that’s generating a dialogue. Best, Jamie Turner
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