Commentary
Why Social Media Holds Keys To Future Of TV Advertising
- by Aaron Goldman , Op-Ed Contributor, April 13, 2016
From a consumer perspective, U.S. TV audiences are down 11% this year, and 87% of viewers use another device while watching the big screen. From a marketer perspective, the percentage of decisions made using analytics is up 22% in the past year, with 80% of companies now able to demonstrate the impact of marketing spending.
So it makes sense that budgets are migrating. But where within the digital world is all that money going?
Brands have moved past the first wave of multiscreen marketing, which simply meant running your 30-second spots during other online video content based on reach and frequency metrics. Now budgets are being (re)allocated to platforms that can deliver the reach and resonance of TV accompanied by the targeting and tracking of digital. They’re going to platforms that can amplify TV brand messaging and extend the value of TV advertising investment. They’re going to platforms that can reach audiences that are cutting the cord or never even had a cord to begin with. They’re going to social media.
Why? Consider these stats:
— 64% of people visit a social media platform during a TV show.
— TV ads drive one in five social media brand engagements.
— On a monthly basis, more than 8 billion videos are viewed on Snapchat and Facebook.
Against this backdrop, is it any wonder Facebook added eight new featrues for live video, including a dedicated video tab on mobile? And now can you see why Twitter paid $10 million to stream NFL games this season.
When it comes to the future of TV advertising, social is where it’s at. In fact, social advertising will see the largest growth of any marketing channel over the next 12 months. But social media is more than just a happy home for TV budgets. It’s a platform poised to make TV great again.
Social makes TV more relevant (and valuable) through real-time interaction. Through social, viewers can engage with other viewers or even directors, cast and crew. They can watch social media posts stream across the bottom of their screens. They can be part of a live, limitless water-cooler conversation. But – spoiler alert! – it’s not the same when content is time-shifted. So social puts a premium on sports, awards, premieres and other must-see-live TV.
Social makes TV advertising more relevant (and valuable) through real-time insights. Marketers can use social data to determine affinities among brands, networks, programs and celebrities. They can use social engagement metrics to measure the impact of their commercials and sponsorships. And they can buy addressable TV audiences using social media segments. In this sense, social puts a premium on TV transactional formats and currencies.
Bottom line, TV ain’t going anywhere -- except down to the #2 slot in total media spend. And it’s still #1 for mass reach and emotional resonance. There’s simply no better channel for building a brand.
But there’s simply no better TV without social these days. To capitalize on the future of TV advertising, marketers would be wise to seize the moment and make TV strategies more social -- and vice versa.
TV viewing is not down 11% nor is 87% of TV viewing done with another device turned on. And I seriously doubt that 80% of marketing companies can precisely define the impact of their promotional spending---aka ROI----with any degree of precision, even if they have a workable definition of ROI in the first place. As far as the ad spending tallies---assuming that those for digital exclude ads that could not be seen due to fraud, ad blockers and other issues----digital ad spending for branding campaigns trails far, far behind TV and probably is lower than magazines and radio. So much for the facts.
Is the future of TV advertising on social media? That's a question whose answer remains to be seen. If we are talking about the interaction of social media and TV viewing when people tweet about commercials while watching TV shows, or receive such tweets from others, the facts are that this is hardly a common occurrance. In fact, Nielsen tells us that most of the relatively small percentage of average telecast viewers who tweet while watching a given TV show--- including the hours immediately before and after the telecast--- comment about the program not the ads.
As an objective observer of the media scene, I can see how social media could play an important role for certain types of advertisers and it certainly merits careful study as a media option. However it's a really great leap of faith to postulate---or even to suggest---that social media will take over TV advertising, lock, stock and barrel.
Thanks for the comment, Ed. Looks like some of the links I included to the sources of those stats got lost when this was published. I've asked the editor to add them back in. Meanwhile, here they are:
And to be clear, I'm not saying Social is going to take over TV. I'm saying it's going to make it more valuable.
Aaron, I don't mean to quibble about sources and I appreciate your citing them. However, it's really a far better idea to pitch social media based on its own merits without getting into a lot of "the sky is falling" stuff about TV. TV viewing is at an all time high, but it is increasingly fragmented, with some attrition by Netflix and other SVOD services added to the competitive mix.,. As regards multitasking, sure, lots of people do it but sometimes, not all the time.. That has been the case ever since TV first appeared and it is more true now than ever.
But neither of these points is relevant for an advertiser who wishes to compliment a TV buy with social media---which, by the way, I believe is one way to go for a number of advertiser types---especially those with youthful constituencies. The problems arise of how to measure the interaction and value it in terms of ROI. Also, there are issues of scale. Much has been said about TV viewers tweeting about ads while watching telecasts, which sounds like an area well worth exploring, however, the incidence of such activity, according to Nielsen's electronic measurements---as opposed to vastly inflated claims made by fallable human respondents in "what do you usually do?" surveys---is very low, a few exceptions aside. So, until the frequency of such behavior increases substantially---and I'm not sure that I see that happening---- advertisers looking for scale are apt to be disappointed by the actual stats. None of this precludes serious consideration of social media in the broader sense, of course. All I'm saying is that it's time to go beyond generalities and start dealing with definable benefits and strategies for using social media.
I totally agree with you, Ed. To your last point, here are a few additional links that were suppsoed to be in my last paragraph. These point to previous pieces I've written outlining specific tactics that can be deployed to maximize the synergy of TV+social.
Seize the moment: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/269257/10-ways-to-seize-the-moment-in-social-media.html
Make TV strategies more social – and vice versa: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/261422/10-ways-to-make-your-tv-strategy-more-social-an.html
Brilliant and insightful analysis Ed!