• by Diane Mermigas , October 17, 2008

While advertisers are pulling back on their media spending during the recession and continue to shift more dollars to digital, many will also invest in cross-platform content that showcases or complements their branded goods and services.

Discovering how ROI can be more accountable, lucrative and controlled through various digital content plays could have a damaging impact on next spring's upfront network television sales. Long-term, it can be a catalyst for accelerated ad spend away from traditional media, once the recession clouds lift in another 18 months.

"The ability to pay for a targeted audience you know is yours online or somewhere where the demographics are not only fine-tuned but certifiable. That's more efficient than buying television in the upfront, with someone telling me I am reaching a broad sweep of women 25-54. Just how many of those woman are an advertiser's specific target--actually saw the ad on television and then acted on it--may never be known," said Douglas Scott, president of Ogilvy Entertainment, part of Ogilvy & Mather North America.

Scott and others on Madison Avenue believe the timing in technology and economic shifts is right to push brand advertisers to digital platforms and devices that bind them more closely to target consumers. It's no longer considered experimental, but a cost-effective, more satisfying integrated marketing option. And it could become learned behavior and the preferred choice that could take a big bite of overall broadcast TV ad dollars in the post-recession period.

This could be the first economic downturn during which advertisers won't just spend less, but spend differently in ways that may become permanent--just as when advertisers began to make major allocations to cable television. The multiplicity of influential factors is unprecedented. Advertisers are becoming more restless about specific audience accountability with television versus the Web and other digital media. Companies that advertise are under extreme pressure to boost ROI. "There is no sense in spending to raise brand awareness and to drive sales, since consumers just aren't buying," said one seasoned agency executive.

In fact, UBS estimates that advertisers will pull at least $11 billion of their spending as a result of the recession. Some Madison Avenue executives say they would not be surprised if advertisers generally pull back 10% to 15% of their overall spending and hold it in reserve going into 2009, while they try to get a better read on how long and deep the recession will be.

Some experts estimate that advertisers could collectively increase their overall digital spending through 2009 by as much as 5%--or increase their collective base of digital dollars spent by as much as 25%--in order to make the most of hyper-targeting, consumer interaction and e-commerce during these tenuous times.

UBS' revised estimates are for global digital advertising (which includes out-of-home, Internet, wireless, in-store, interactive TV, online video gaming and branded Internet ads) to grow by more than 30% to about $40 billion or 14% of total ad spend. The Internet alone in the U.S. will grow by 20% to about $25 billion.

Scott says he's convinced more advertisers will invest in content that will continuously play on the Web, on mobile devices and on cable television that encourages consumers to buy. There are enough successful examples around to provide best-practices templates.

Ponds' second-season investment in USA Networks' "The Starter Wife," as well as the pickup of "The Motherhood" by ABC as a 13-episode series after two seasons as Webisodes on MSN are just two examples.

Last season, Ponds spent three-quarters of its TV ad budget to produce "Starter Wife," subtly integrating four of its products, two of which have experienced double-digit increases in sales. There also was a halo effect across the entire brand. In comparison, Dove has had less success with a similar investment in the film "The Women." Because equity investments in content can include broadcast and residual rights, and off-air rights to create and maintain marketing links, the returns can be impressive--10 to 20 times the investment--if a project is successful and continuously recycled a la "Starter Wife."

Through their investment support for "The Motherhood" on the Web and their use of hyper-targeting, Unilever's Suave and Sprint experienced three to five times the impressions and traffic they would have by using more conventional advertising. The mothers they were targeting also contributed their ideas to scripted episodes, as well as consulting and commiserating with each other in a robust online social network--all of it orchestrated by Mindshare.

Scott also expects to see advertisers increasingly work with mobile smart phones and retail marketing tactics, including blue-tooth triggered shoutouts from store shelves and in-store video networks like Wal-Mart TV, which generated $400 million in advertising last year. Hellmann's mayonnaise will dedicate more of its dollars spent with Bobby Flay next season reaching out to consumers on their way home from work. The company will use mobile texting and other digital marketing moves to create "a brand presence of mind" at the retail level that can translate into transactions. It has more recently succeeded with a "Real Food" series of Webisodes on Yahoo.

The time and circumstances are right for advertisers and their agencies to buy into quality over quantity, accountable measurement, ongoing integration of products and content across many different platforms. "The relative cost of investment--which can be $2,500 to $5,000 per minute of content production--is worth it for many companies because they are getting high-quality, short-form video that has continuous viral value. It can be 74 seconds of really good content and delivers more than $150 million worth of media and a sudden hit," Scott said.

It is one of the best ways around to assure $2 to $3 of return on every $1 spent in the form of consumer engagement and sales, he said. Not bad for tough times.