A Funnel Thing Happened On The Way To A Converged Video Marketplace
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, February 7, 2019
Television, with the exception of direct-response ads and home shopping networks, has long been perceived as being at the top of the so-called “marketing funnel,” but is increasingly being valued for the lower end, thanks to increases in digital backchannels and data.
That’s one of the significant findings from a new report from ad industry B-to-B researcher Advertiser Perceptions.
The just-released edition of its 2019 Video Convergence Report finds that marketers and agency executives increasingly are utilizing advanced TV platforms for lower-funnel functions such as sales, conversions, leads and other actions.
While the majority of ad execs interviewed by Advertiser Perceptions late last year still utilize linear TV advertising mainly for upper-funnel functions like generating awareness and positioning their brands, they said they are using over-the-top video distributed via computers, connected TVs and mobile devices more for lower-funnel performance.
The same is true for addressable TV, although it’s still a relatively small part of the overall TV/video convergence mix.
“TV remains the first choice for generating awareness, while digital/mobile video is the first choice for conversion,” the report notes, adding: “Advertisers are using other digital channels about equally for awareness and conversion, except for addressable TV, which is being sought more for generating leads and purchases than for awareness.”
Regardless of the strategy, the report also indicates that there is continuing broad-based demand from marketers and agency executives for utilizing TV and video advertising.
“The video expansion is not an either-or proposition,” Andy Sippel, executive vice president at Advertiser Perceptions, explains, adding: “Advertisers are expanding their investment to follow engaged viewers onto as many platforms as possible.”
While the study shows overall stability in video budgets, the share being allocated to linear TV is projected to decline two percentage points to 21% with the main beneficiaries being OTT/connected TV advertising and addressable TV advertising, which will each pick up a point over the next 12 months.
Joe, if the percentages of ad spend shown in that last pie chart reflect the nature of the sample for this study---which is probably the case---then it is not close to being represenative of all TV/video advertisers nor are the findings weighted by the amount of spend. It's really hard to accept the idea that "linear TV" will get only 21% of the dollars next year. Perhaps a better way to look at such research is on a trending, not an absolute, basis, again assuming that the respondents are similar in composition from one year to the next.