Tell any modern marketer that you’re building a campaign that includes TV as a majority of the budget and they may label you a marketing Luddite. In the now immortal words of Brad Jakemen, President of PepsiCo, at the Association of National Advertising (ANA) annual soiree: “We are still talking about the 30-second TV spot. Seriously?”
Well, yes… we are! While TV shouldn’t be the only tool in your arsenal, it still plays a very important role in the marketing funnel around the globe. Particularly if you’re a web company, TV is an effective medium for driving domain direct traffic, and step-level growth once your digital marketing reaches diminishing returns, or to catapult your growth in a new market. Here are a few reasons why TV is still relevant for web companies today:
- Create a “Brick-and-Mortar” Presence: the “As Seen On TV” nameplate from the early 2000’s was a stamp of approval that the product you were buying was a credible source. Running on TV meant a product was mainstream and a known entity; web companies in particular need to communicate that they are established given how many sites go by the wayside. TV is a valuable medium to communicate the emotive and human qualities of your brand. TV provides an engaging platform to explain what your business does — given many web companies are disrupting old models, or creating new categories all together, there usually is a lot of explaining that needs to be done to help drive consideration and motivation.
- Trust in Traditional Advertising Still Strong: According to the most recent 2015 Neilson Trust in Advertising Report (http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/nielsenglobal/apac/docs/reports/2015/nielsen-global-trust-in-advertising-report-september-2015.pdf), more than 6-in-10 global respondents say they “completely” or “somewhat” trust TV advertising, and while this figure is only 1% higher year-over-year from 2013, what’s more surprising is that it hasn’t decreased — despite digital and social media disruption, trust in TV has remained consistent. In fact, TV advertising is the most trusted of offline media channels (above radio, print, billboards, etc), and more than 10 percentage points higher than trust in any online marketing channel — nearly 20 percentage points higher than online banner ads.
- Domain Direct Traffic Critical to Long Term Success: This may be one of the most important points for a web company to consider. While search engine marketing is a priority for all web businesses, its important to leverage other channels to build traffic that is not dependent on third parties. A simple change in Google’s algorithm could deem your marketing, and business, obsolete. Some of the largest search engine marketers of the past decade are companies that nearly disappeared overnight due to competition from the very search engines that helped them grow their business.
- A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: Rather than thinking of TV and broad reach in “single swim lanes” consider the “synchronized swimming” approach; integrate your offline and online efforts to help reach customers across the marketing funnel. Web marketers are very familiar with the notion of “customer experience funnels” for driving on site conversion — think of this as driving customers through the “marketing experience funnel“.
The number of web companies continuing to demonstrate successful case studies of step level growth with TV as a part of their marketing mix continues to grow around the globe. FanDuel and DraftKings, Houzz, Trunk Club, Indeed, Trivago, Ancestry, DropBox, Jet, eHarmony, VistaPrint, eSurance, Zillow, and even Google to name a few. TV may still be a traditional media, but that doesn’t mean you have to use it in traditional ways; new technology doesn’t replace creativity, it simply enables it.
About Us: Moco Global is a marketing advisory firm dedicated to helping web companies build their brand and scale in the US and International markets. Visit us at www.mocoglobal.com or on Twitter https://twitter.com/followmoco for marketing news, trends and insights on web companies around the world.
moco global 