Is TV Advertising Still Effective?

While internet advertising is now a huge part of any marketing strategy, are traditional TV adverts still an effective form of video marketing? In this blog, we’ll be taking a look at whether TV advertising is still worth a portion of your marketing budget.

While social media and the internet have become prime real estate for advertisers, television is still an effective medium. Brands can’t afford to miss out on the opportunity of online video marketing, but it’s not time to put TV advertising to bed yet, and it is likely that TV advertising will continue to be an effective way to reach an audience for some time.

A well-placed TV advert will put your brand right in front of your target audience. Data can be used to determine what programmes most people are watching and when, and you can even choose the advertising slot when most people are likely to still be in front of their TV sets.

TV audiences are slightly more captive than those on social media, who are already scrolling past, and ads need to do a lot of work very quickly to convince them to stop for a moment and take notice.

TV audiences watching in real-time still have the choice to switch the channel or even leave the room to make a cup of tea. However, most of the time they will sit through the adverts and wait for their programme to resume, meaning they are more likely to see your advert and see it through to the end.

The potential audience for a TV advert is huge and securing an ad spot during a monumental TV programme, such as a popular TV show finale or the final game of a sporting tournament could mean you reach viewers that you never would through other types of advertising.

Currently, the major downside of TV advertising is that advertisers don’t have access to the same actionable metrics, insights and attribution data that digital ads provide. However, it is still possible to track key information such as effective reach, and advances in advertising technology such as data-driven linear TV are presenting advertisers with more viewership data than ever.

People also don’t watch as much live television as they used to, with many devoting most of their screen time to streaming services or catch-up TV, and streaming services such as Netflix currently don’t allow any adverts. However, certain catch-up services such as the ITV Hub and All 4 still feature ads before and during their programmes.

The good news is that you can create an advert that works effectively on multiple channels, such as TV, online and on social media, without having to shoot an entirely different advert, and the additional expense of marketing on multiple channels is just whatever you pay for the advertising slots.

While certain narratives or video styles definitely work better on some platforms than others, a high-quality advert that remains entertaining and engaging when cut to different runtimes will absolutely do the job.

For example, you may have a 30-second version of your advert for a TV slot, a minute-long version for social media and a longer video for your website or YouTube. As long as the ad still gets your message across and hits the right beats, then there’s no need to spend extra on production to advertise across multiple channels.

The bottom line is that TV advertising is still effective, but it does have to share the same advertising budget as your other channels, such as social media ads and PPC ads, which are also very effective. The key to using TV advertising effectively is to use as much data as possible to find the right advertising slot and measure the campaign’s effectiveness as best you can.

If you need help creating your TV advert or a video advert for any other channel, please get in touch and see how we can help.