Why marketers continue to struggle with TV advertising.

By Adam Armbruster

Marketers that are having issues making TV work in their budgets because of a misperception. What can they do?

Here are three key point about TV and how marketers can adjust media planning:

1.Branding: TV is often highlighted by Hollywood as a “branding” medium in popular shows like Mad Man and others. Truth is that branding is not why most advertisers utilize TV, they use it to drive market share which means they want a measurable sales response. Using TV for branding implies that you have a very large and long term campaign budget. This is the usual method that consumer brand companies like P&G use to build brands long term. As many advertising plans do not have that level of spending available, then short-term cost efficient sales generation is the appropriate goal.

2.Attribution: Measuring the impact of a TV campaign though the use of a consumer verbal survey will often mislead a marketer. Consumers have a very high recall error rate [a double digit error rate within 20 minutes of exposure*] so recall feedback is unreliable. Today the impact of TV campaigns shows itself in organic website traffic, phone call volume, and an improved conversion to a sale. So really TV has become digital. It’s the same to the customer. Let’s avoid trying to have the consumer lead us in this attribution space. Use your own empirical raw data for truth.

3.Messaging: Your message needs to check off all of the boxes that a consumer is using to assess your product or service message. Are you giving a “now” buyer what they need? Trying to be entertaining in your message is fine, but driving sales is better. There are six components to an effective retail driving message, does your message motivate a “now” buyer? Make sure a buyer sees you as the first and best option.

Adjust your understanding of TV first, to enjoy advanced success in your marketing going forward.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve