• Advertising Age, Monday, February 23, 2009 10:02 AM

An unexpected finding is emerging from the smoldering ruins of one of the ugliest financial quarters TV has ever encountered. Evidence suggests that TV advertising is working better than ever. An ethnographic study due to be released next month by Nielsen, research firm Sequent and Ball State University finds TV remains the dominant medium to reach consumers, even youth, despite the inroads of social media and digital technology.

When it comes to the average sales lift per rating point of TV ads, Television is also holding its own. According to marketing-mix analysis by Aegis Group's Synovate, aggregate TV has seen a slight uptick in effectiveness in recent years. "We haven't seen a significant trend in the erosion of effectiveness of TV," says Douglas Brooks, senior vice president of Synovate's MMA.

MMA also has found a surprising spillover effect for TV in digital media. About one-third of search queries for brands studied are driven by offline advertising, particularly TV -- a higher proportion than that driven by online-display advertising, Brooks says. Marketing-mix analysts report that creative quality makes a big difference in effectiveness -- and explains more about a campaign's success than media choices.

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