While brands are already starting to plan their Black Friday TV campaigns, DCMN South Africa’s Offline Manager, Shireen Warner, debunks a few myths about TV advertising and why brands can and should use it as a performance medium, even if they don’t have big budgets to spend.
Q&A with Warner
Most brands believe that TV advertising is only for brand building campaigns and cannot be used for performance marketing. Is this true?
With the tools we have nowadays to effectively measure the impact of a single TV spot on leads (TV attribution software), this is no longer the case. If your business has an e-commerce platform, we can tell you whether that Carte Blanche spot holds the value you think it does. TV has a role as a brand-building medium but that is not its sole function anymore. Utilising your longer durations to establish your brand and convey product messaging is absolutely required but, the question you should be asking is ‘when can I start spending less money and seeing actual returns?’ Companies like DCMN have the ability to measure the response to your brand ads and start building performance campaigns with lower cost values.
Should only brands who can afford to advertise during prime time be advertising on TV?
No. we have found that with the change of media consumption, across multiple platforms and devices, the traditional view that a brand needs to be in prime time to make an impact, isn’t always the case anymore. We have experienced that with several of our clients, higher site visits and leads are generated during daytime spots. This simple but powerful finding means that brands can reach their leads target on a smaller TV budget simply because we can now make data-driven media decisions.
Do you have clients that benefit from advertising outside of prime time?
We have smaller clients that don’t have ‘big brand’ budgets but are on TV and are seeing the results. Advertising in off peak slots are very cost efficient and are effectively delivering site visits and leads. When the data says that advertising during 9am to 12pm on a Monday, on a niche channel, will give you 13 leads for spending R5000 on TV, would you still follow your gut or rather respond to and apply the data?
Can a brand with a relatively small budget really advertise on TV? And how will they know whether it is effective or not?
Yes. If an e-commerce client has not been on TV because they don’t think they have the budget to do so, they should consider doing a test campaign over a period of two weeks. The leads generated by that campaign will not only show the success of the campaign but will also give them insight into their consumer and a data supported strategy moving forward. Spending less money on a media campaign because you’re a start-up or a small brand doesn’t mean you compromise the values of the outcomes. Every rand, whether from small or large budget, has the same value! You just have an informed choice on how to use it smarter.
Black Friday is around the corner (in the world of advertising at least). How can brands make sure that they make the most of TV advertising during this time?
There is so much media clutter to consider when planning Black Friday advertising. Brands have seen amazing results from Black Friday advertising, but did their TV ads really drive the site traffic or was it the general Black Friday frenzy? Every brand is looking for that bold, stand out, impactful TV advert that is going to set them apart from the rest. But how much impact can you make with your 30 second advert when you’re one of 11 ads flighted during a break in a prime time show? Brands will only know the real impact their campaign had if they use TV attribution software to track the performance of the 2019 campaign to help them make data driven decisions for the 2020 campaign (or any other campaigns that run in between).
DCMN South Africa www.dcmn.com
