Commentary
Television's Marketing Problem
- by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, March 9, 2018
Rebuilding done, we decided it would be a good idea to hold a media event for our media partners — the leading media companies in that country — so that we could rebuild and re-establish connections between them and our new team. We choose to host an event at the country’s equivalent of Media Week.
To our surprise, we found that almost all the media companies accepted our invitation at CEO, CMO and national sales director level. After chatting with a few people who confirmed their attendance, I realized what had attracted them: our perceived value as an advertiser. And that perceived value was MUCH higher than our actual market spend. The reality was, we were a Top 40 advertiser as measured in ad spend. But our global status, our brand portfolio, our global and local history all created the aura of a Top 10 advertiser.
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There are important lessons to be learned from this. First, it proves once again that perception is reality. Second, it shows how much brand value, health and status matter: not just to consumers but, equally, to your ability to be successful as an advertiser or marketer.
I was reminded of this story because I read an article this week about new research by Jack Myers’ TomorrowToday, in which a whopping 80% of the 1,200 U.S. brand marketers and agency executives interviewed rated the combo of Facebook, Amazon and Google very valuable for delivering consumer reach in campaigns. Meanwhile, only 61% rated the four leading U.S. broadcast networks “valuable” to deliver consumer reach.
I have written here and here about the marketing perception problem TV is facing. The results are of course in stark contrast to the realities of TV’s ability to deliver reach versus Amazon, Google and Facebook.
Don’t get me wrong, the three online giants command a great amount of time spent, eyeballs and engagement. And TV is surely losing some eyeballs and reach, especially among younger audiences.
But the three online giants do not outperform TV by almost 20%. The problem is, that’s not what marketers think. Their perception is that Big Online outperforms network TV when it comes to reach. The Jack Myers study proves this point.
And perception is the most difficult thing to address as a marketer. Chipotle gives you the runs. VW diesel engines can’t be trusted. United Airlines is terrible to its passengers. These are all perceptions that some consumers might believe — and correcting them is very hard, if not impossible.
Jack Myers concludes that TV has a marketing problem, and I agree (it started as early as 2014). The only remedy is to hire the best of the best in marketing and start chipping away at the perception before it is too late. Otherwise, network TV might be bleeding ad dollars faster than it is bleeding actual audience.
Exellent article Maarten. This is happening so much in the local level now. It's almost Fashionable to be heavily into on line/social. If you tell your peers you still use Television or terristrial radio, they look at you like you're a dinosaur. Even a local cemetery/funeral company i know told me they were dumping traditional media in favor of digital. Let's see, people over 60 have a better chance of dying than those under 40, yet you want to market to the younger customers now? I guess I'll just watch their business decompose. Digital is very good, but know who your target is... I'm not sure if enough local 60+ are spending ore time on line than watching TV. Doubt it.
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I agree, Maarten, that the powers that be in TV---especially the broadcast TV networks--have done a terrible job in defending their medium relative to digital. Indeed, they have been almost silent as a barrage of trade press accounts, conferences, "opinion pieces" etc. have tried to sell advertisers on the notion that TV has lost---or is about to lose--most of its worthwhile and oh so important millennial viewers ---to say nothing about its total reach ---to digital media. Topping that, is the constant negativity about commercials---nobody watches them don't you know---as well as TV's lousy programming, etc.etc. Yet, at the same time we are ---or were ---told that programmatic buying may yet save poor TV after all if only advertisers would wise up and do things the digital way. And so it goes. Small wonder that a survey of advertiser marketing execs finds that they mistakenly believe that digital media "giants" far outperform the TV networks in reach?
As you know, I and some others have tried to push back on this propaganda campaign, in my case not because I am on TV's "side" and against "digital but, rather, just to set the record straight, report the facts and get people to realize that what is happening is a slow and measured evolution, not a done thing--with TV falling completely by the wayside. But, again, one may ask, why aren't the TV people chiming in? Are they so certain that advertisers regard their medium as a "must buy" that there's no reason to rise to its defense? If that's the case, they are making a big mistake----because change is taking place and, like it or not, TV will have to adapt to stay relevant.
While my social media website, SweepstakesToday.com is not reconized as such, the members certainly do. We have onsight times that is comparable to Facebook and other social sites. The interesting part is, the members, who are mainly middle to older in age, are burned out on regular TV and it's contents. Clearly they don't want politics, violence and vulgarity in their entertainment. They want stress free fun for entertainment. That may sound to simple of a comment but it's very true. Why can't Big TV understand that?
Great article Maarten. I think the issue is marketing comprehension, competency and belief in the C-Suite and management ranks of the media companies. It always continues to befuddle me that all of the media companies you cite, traditional and digital and others like them, generate the bulk of their revenue through selling advertising. These revenues are the result of brand marketers either directly or through their agencies creating and building brand equity, product differentiation and consumer demand for their products or services through investing in the principles of marketing. These principles that directly generate revenue for the media owners are generally not understood or applied to their own businesses - and they are the recipients of this investment in marketing. How can this be? This is incredulous to me! Not surprisingly the digital giant's ranks, because they needed to educate, evangelize and market their platforms, are stacked with more professional marketers better equipped to have meaningful marketing conversations with client and agency brand managers than the legacy media companies are. And these conversations manifest themselves via sales calls, marketing materials, and good old advertising and media campaigns. Ad supported media companies, especially legacy media companies and platforms, HAVE to become students of their customers, learn from them, and apply the principles that drives revenues to their door to their own businesses. Most ad supported media companies suffer from "shoemaker syndrome", and can't figure out why they are falling behind in the media footrace. Recognizing that they should be in the marketing business versus the sales business is an important first step back to parity and competitiveness.
Do clients believe digital target better and it's cheaper ? Do agencies have less to do by buying bulk "stuff" using techy garble vs boring TV ? Which media is more agency profitable ? Which media can add more billables for less work ? Which media is easier to fudge numbers ?
Paula, savvbranding advertisers who use TV on a national basis have learned that digital media can only target those consumers where they have information---which is not every marketing prospect by a long shot. As for reach, your typical digital media video buy gives you less reach than TV---often by a huge margin---no matter how big the reach of the platform as a whole may seem. Last but not least, when you do the math and figure a comparable CPM to TV, taking into account the fact that TV commercials are always 100% viewable and always have the viewer's screen all to themselves---TV usually has a better CPM where equal length TV commercials are concerned.
What I see happening is that many TV advertisers are starting to use digital not for branding purposes but for sales promotion activities, including direct response. The metrics for DR are very different than those for branding as you pay only when someone takes action with most DR campaigns.
Make that "savvy" not "savv" in the opening of my last post.
Shockingly, I do know including targeting their "fans". What I don't know are the answers the $ questions. Today there are 2 different articles about fake news which can fit right in.