The rise of dig­i­tal media as an engag­ing chan­nel for con­sumers has seen bud­gets, invest­ment, and mar­ket­ing efforts shift­ing away from tra­di­tion­al media such as broad­cast­ing and print, and toward paid and online. How­ev­er, while the rich diver­si­ty and engage­ment poten­tial of dig­i­tal media does offer an entic­ing propo­si­tion for mar­keters, the reach and impact of tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing still offers adver­tis­ers an attrac­tive propo­si­tion in build­ing the cru­cial aware­ness that reas­sures con­sumers about a brand. How­ev­er, air­time does­n’t come cheap, so how do adver­tis­ers ensure that their tele­vi­sion cam­paigns are deliv­er­ing the kind of val­ue that ensures the chan­nel remains a wor­thy invest­ment?

When you con­sid­er that 30 sec­onds of air­time cov­er­age dur­ing the Super Bowl cost adver­tis­ers $4.5 mil­lion, it’s clear that high pro­file (and high bud­get) tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing is still regard­ed as a valu­able chan­nel for brands to oper­ate. How­ev­er, it remains a chal­lenge for brands to mea­sure the true val­ue of their tele­vi­sion cam­paigns.

With the abil­i­ty to track, mea­sure, and attribute con­sumer inter­ac­tions on online chan­nels becom­ing more accu­rate, it’s lit­tle won­der that three dig­i­tal chan­nels (social, mobile, and email) are set to dom­i­nate mar­ket­ing bud­gets in the next three to five years.

Quite sim­ply, the advent of dig­i­tal media means there are oth­er chan­nels for brands to invest their bud­gets, such as paid or social media, chan­nels which are arguably more effec­tive at build­ing author­i­ty and trust, and cre­at­ing brand aware­ness among con­sumers.

Increas­ing­ly, adver­tis­ers who engage in tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing are under pres­sure to deliv­er. What can adver­tis­ers do to ensure their tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing counts?

Integrating Television Advertising: Super Bowl 2015

Insights from agency wywy, explor­ing brand per­for­mance over last week­end’s Super Bowl, sug­gest that the key to achiev­ing val­ue from tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing is to inte­grate it with wider cam­paigns. wywy’s research cit­ed that up to 78 per­cent of Inter­net users access sec­ond-screen devices when watch­ing tele­vi­sion, and one-third check out prod­uct infor­ma­tion after view­ing a TV ad.

A study of the Super Bowl 2015 ads that aired on nation­al TV, wywy found that most brands used social media in con­junc­tion with their tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing cam­paigns.

These are healthy sta­tis­tics, but sev­er­al adver­tis­ers still fail to inte­grate tele­vi­sion with wider mar­ket­ing efforts, result­ing in a dis­con­nect. Wywy’s study found that of the 56 brands who aired ads dur­ing the Super Bowl:

• 18 per­cent did­n’t con­nect expe­ri­ences on brand web­sites with the mes­sag­ing or tag lines of their Super Bowl adverts.
• 37 per­cent of web­sites dis­played prod­ucts with com­pro­mised vis­i­bil­i­ty (in a slide show, a small space, or low­er on the dis­play forc­ing users to scroll).

On mobile devices, some brands failed to con­nect up the adver­to­r­i­al push of their cam­paign:

• 20 per­cent did­n’t con­nect their mobile web­site expe­ri­ence to the Super Bowl ad mes­sage.
• 42 per­cent dis­played prod­ucts with com­pro­mised vis­i­bil­i­ty.

The fig­ures above rep­re­sent a large pro­por­tion of brands that are per­haps focus­ing too heav­i­ly on the impact of expen­sive tele­vi­sion cam­paigns, and neglect­ing the gold­en rule in mar­ket­ing: to inte­grate efforts in a way where chan­nels can com­ple­ment each oth­er and con­nect seam­less user expe­ri­ences.

“The Super Bowl is a one-of-a-kind TV adver­tis­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands and the recep­tiv­i­ty is high­ly pos­i­tive, but sales are being sent to the side­lines when the cam­paign isn’t car­ried through across screens,” said Andreas Schroeter, co-founder and COO of wywy. “Con­sumers now expect brands to tell the same mes­sage regard­less of the screen and way they inter­act.”

Cross-Screen Integration: Budweiser And Minibar

One exam­ple of a brand that man­aged to put cross-plat­form inte­gra­tion into prac­tice was peren­ni­al Super Bowl adver­tis­er Bud­weis­er. The beer man­u­fac­tur­er part­nered with Mini­bar, an on-demand alco­hol deliv­ery plat­form. The case shows how tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing can be con­nect­ed with cross-screen expe­ri­ences to help dri­ve sales.

When Bud­weis­er screened their “Lost Dog” pup­py com­mer­cial, Mini­bar sent a syn­chro­nized push noti­fi­ca­tion to their entire net­work, allow­ing brand buzz and excel­lent pro­vi­sion of user expe­ri­ence to work togeth­er to gen­er­ate healthy sales.

The move result­ed in the high­est sin­gle day of Bud­weis­er sales on Mini­bar, ever. In addi­tion:

• Bud­weis­er orders up 500 per­cent vs. pri­or week
• Bud­weis­er dol­lar sales up 650 per­cent vs. pri­or week
• In-app mobile engage­ment jumped 400 per­cent dur­ing the 10 min­utes sur­round­ing the push noti­fi­ca­tion
• 80 per­cent increase in sin­gle day new app users

Advertisers Must Ensure TV Campaigns Deliver Value

All too often, brands neglect wider mar­ket­ing goals in their attempts to deliv­er impact­ful adver­tis­ing. To real­ly deliv­er val­ue, brands need to inte­grate efforts and tie togeth­er omnichan­nel expe­ri­ences to fit the way peo­ple are con­sum­ing dig­i­tal media.

“Tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing fits in only if, for the most part, it com­ple­ments your oth­er forms of media in a way that can be sus­tained over the medi­um and long term,” said PR expert Jason Vines, com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant and author of new book “What Did Jesus Dri­ve?: Cri­sis PR in Cars, Com­put­ers and Chris­tian­i­ty”, and for­mer head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Nis­san, Ford, and Chrysler. “One-off hits are noth­ing more than a mas­sag­ing of cor­po­rate ego. Tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing, no mat­ter how clever, must relate a mes­sage that is mem­o­rable and can be regur­gi­tat­ed by the tar­get audi­ence.

“A Super Bowl ad is no use to a brand if a week lat­er, peo­ple are say­ing: ‘Hey, you see that cool ad with the cats?’ ‘Yeah, what com­pa­ny was that for?’ Ouch,” he added. “Brands need to ensure they don’t let the clev­er­ness over­whelm the nec­es­sary prod­uct mes­sage they need to com­mu­ni­cate.”

Essen­tial­ly, brands should approach tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing as many in the indus­try have learned to approach dig­i­tal media: by putting con­sumers first, and encour­ag­ing engage­ment across screens and chan­nels, rather than pro­mot­ing siloed pro­mo­tion­al con­tent.

“Adver­tis­ing on tele­vi­sion needs to be regard­ed as just one part of a com­plete con­nect­ed sto­ry­telling cam­paign, and ide­al­ly as the start­ing point.” Schroeter said, “Brands should aim to ignite the con­ver­sa­tion with TV adver­tis­ing and encour­age fur­ther con­sumer engage­ment and action via online chan­nels and search.”

One in three TV view­ers look up prod­uct relat­ed infor­ma­tion after watch­ing a TV ad, and 80 per­cent of TV inspired site vis­its take place with­in 90 sec­onds of an ad being aired, accord­ing to Schroeter. By syn­chro­niz­ing TV ads with search engine adver­tis­ing cam­paigns, dis­play­ing the adver­tised prod­uct on the brand’s home­page, and mea­sur­ing the result­ing traf­fic uplift via TV ana­lyt­ics, ROI and con­ver­sion rates can be sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost­ed for adver­tis­ers.

“Adver­tis­ing on tele­vi­sion is now regard­ed as a ‘tra­di­tion­al’ adver­tis­ing method, but it still serves a vital role for mod­ern adver­tis­ing cam­paigns and has two main USPs. First­ly, the sheer audi­ence reach and sec­ond­ly, the greater emo­tion­al engage­ment achieved via audio and visu­al brand sto­ry­telling,” Schroeter said. “Although the ben­e­fits of tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing are high­ly desir­able to mar­keters, TV needs to be regard­ed as just one part of a com­plete con­nect­ed sto­ry­telling cam­paign, and ide­al­ly as the start­ing point.”

How can tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ers engage in bet­ter cross-screen and inte­grat­ed prac­tices?