Luckily it has been cold and wet here in the lovely city of Prague, so I have felt little temptation to leave the Effective Communications and Ad Effectiveness Symposia to go sight seeing. The presentations have been varied and interesting. While I had been expecting the so-called “new media” to hog the stage, TV was in the limelight.
Leading the charge for the pro-TV camp was Dr. Byron Sharp, director, the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia. His basic premise is that TV is like many product brands – stable, mature and with little segmentation – but that its capability to build reach fast remains its core strength.
As a disciple of Professor Andrew Ehrenberg, Byron believes that reach is the key driver of success in advertising, just as penetration is the key driver of building repeat purchase. (The fact that higher penetration is invariably related to higher repeat purchase is a fact often ignored by marketers, but, equally, I believe Byron and his colleagues gloss over the fact that some brands do manage to break this general trend and generate more than their fair share of repeat purchase.) Byron makes his case well and the following are a few points I took away:
• Brands typically have a buyer distribution skewed to light, infrequent buyers. Therefore, advertising should seek to refresh memories and remind people about the brand. By aiming at the light user you will also hit the heavy user.
• The amount of time spent watching TV has been rising over time, but viewing is fragmented across more channels. Costs are rising because of the laws of supply and demand. More advertisers want more TV time, so networks can charge a higher price.
• Consumers pay to have hundreds of channels, but typically view no more than 15. The majority of viewing still goes to the major free channels.
• Byron claimed that most marketers and viewers overestimate program loyalty. Not content with reviewing the stats, he asked “Would you miss a date to watch Sex in the City?” Because most people respond negatively to that question, he suggested that “continuing story” ads are doomed to failure, since most people will miss at least some of the ads in the sequence.
• The ideal frequency is one exposure per buying period per individual. Perhaps recognizing that this is not a feasible buy, he suggested spreading ads out rather than bunching them.
The following day, Byron received support from Andy Nairn, planning director, Miles Calcroft Briginshaw Duffy. Andy presented the award-winning case history of the “Hello World” advertising for Travelocity in the UK. Andy piqued our interest in his report when he introduced it as “a classic third phase case study… or not?”
Andy proceeded to highlight what made the case study unique:
• The research that provided insight for the campaign was unusual. Couples were invited to dinner at a nice restaurant rather than a focus group facility. (Sounds good to me!)
• While the client wanted to target the mass market of people just about to go online, the agency chose to target the experienced online travel seeker.
• The inspired choice of Alan Wicker, well-known to all Brits as an enthusiastic travel presenter from the 1960’s and 70’s, created a vehicle to integrate a set of creative and complementary communications in TV, radio, outdoor, online and guerilla marketing.
• The end result was a dramatic change in the fortunes of Travelocity in the UK, with consideration rising from 33 percent to over 50 percent.
So was this a classic third-case case study? Acording to Alan, it wasn’t, because TV was crucial to the campaign’s success to create reach, awareness and fame.
Tomorrow’s sessions look like they will likely redress this balance in favor of new media. In particular, Nigel Hollis is apparently going to present on the topic “Navigating the Seas of New Media” – I wonder what he will have to say?
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June 2nd, 2006 at 2:42 pm
All interesting points. Nevertheless, most TV advertising is asinine and takes up too much viewing time… this, together with the growing presence of the Internet, Tivo, etc. should be viewed with caution… networks and advertisers may eventually get punished for it.