When is ‘enough’ enough?

The results of two new research studies have made me question one of the final shibboleths of media planning: the idea that there is such a thing as an ‘effective frequency’ which can be easily defined and which offers a single, optimal level at which the advertising ‘works’.

The first piece of research was a neuroscientific study we carried out. It revealed how we process advertising when we watch TV as opposed to when we are engaged in various online activities. It clearly points to the importance of emotion and engagement in driving performance – much more so than attention – and underlines recent insights into the role emotional association and implicit memory play in strengthening a brand’s position within our choice set. As the neuroscientists say, “the neurones that fire together wire together”.

The second study, conducted with the IPA, compared data from the IPA Databank with scores from the Gunn Report and showed conclusively that creativity does pay…just not necessarily in the way we expected. There was a much greater pound-for-pound performance amongst creatively-awarded ads in terms of driving efficiency (i.e. how much relative share of voice drives market share), but the differences in absolute effectiveness were less marked for the simple reason that the creatively-awarded campaigns spent less and therefore achieved a lower share of voice, despite the fact that they were eleven times more efficient at driving market share. One of the explanations for this may be that many of these campaigns were advised that they could ‘get away with’ spending less to achieve their target levels of awareness, recall, stand-out etc. so the ads could achieve them with lower levels of frequency.

So what of ‘effective frequency’?

Qualitatively, we have seen many examples of ad campaigns where respondents appear quite happy to watch and enjoy their favourite ads time and time again; Barclays ‘Waterslide’ and Comparethemarket.com’s Meerkat ads are good recent examples of this. We can all think of ads that we would be happy to keep seeing, like Honda ‘Cog’, Sony ‘Balls’ and Cadbury’s Gorilla.  It is clear that there is no single magic number beyond which the message has landed and the job is done. Every additional exposure to an ad is part of the continued wiring together of neurones into positive associations with the brand. These can last a lifetime and relate far more closely to business performance and incremental profit than the message cut-through approach that underpins much of the thinking behind the concept of ‘effective frequency’.  

I’m not denying that ads can sometimes reach their maximum desirable frequency, after which even I start shouting at the TV.  But very, very few campaigns get to the Crazy Frog level and recency is a major factor here.  No-one wants to see the same ad 20 times in a single day, but, spread across a month,  that frequency becomes totally acceptable.

All of the new insights from behavioural economics and neuroscience (two polar opposite disciplines yielding very similar insights) about the power of fame and emotion to influence the way we use implicit associations to ‘short-cut’ the decision-making process have successfully weaned us away from the ‘message myth’, swaddled in the comfort blanket of influence models such as AIDA and DAGMAR. Perhaps now is the time to rethink the role of frequency within the mix; especially if it also means refocusing on the potential payback achieved by higher levels of advertising creativity.

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TV weaves through the MediaGuardian 100

It might just be me, but the annual MediaGuardian 100 - just published - provides a lovely insight into the many ways TV touches upon our different media and various parts of our media lives. It is an elegant – albeit accidental – exposition of convergence and shows how TV is the strong and consistent thread running through almost every aspect of the media landscape.

The set-up for the list betrays a lingering – though thankfully declining – propensity to play ‘old’ or ‘traditional’ media off against ‘new’ or ‘digital’ media. The front page introduces the 100 (which comes with a heavy disclaimer on how it was chosen) by saying:

“Back in the heady days of 2001, [the list] was topped by big broadcasters, AOL and someone called Gordon Brown. How things change…This year, more than ever, digital dominates, with the rise of social media bringing new challenges to traditional businesses. Will newspaper bosses ever dominate the lists again?”

Now I can’t answer that last question, and I suspect the answer is no-one really knows.  But the direction of travel seems to be most definitely from text to audio-visual, whatever technology or platform you’re looking at.  

A Thinkbox interpretation of how TV (an almost entirely digital and very social medium) figures within the top 10 alone will, I’m sure, convince you that TV is truly where it’s at.

Here is the top 10:

1. Steve Jobs, Apple: makes flat devices with screens that let you watch more TV; TV on the bus, TV at work. If he could make faded jeans and black roll necks with screens on, I'm sure he would.
2. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google: search is hugely driven by TV programmes and ads.  Joined the TV business by buying YouTube, a recent convert to ‘proper’ professional TV, making it another TV platform.  Recently announced the coming of Google TV.
3. Mark Thompson, BBC: works for a company that makes some of the best TV in the world, and a pioneer of on-demand TV with iPlayer
4. Rupert Murdoch, News Corp: the Daddy of pay TV.  Trying to buy all of Sky.  MediaGuardian says he is ‘betting the future on television’
5. Evan Williams, Twitter: nothing gives a better window into how TV’s shared ‘virtual sofa’ encourages real time debate and chatter than Twitter. It would be a lot quieter without TV
6. Simon Cowell: fronts and owns some of the biggest TV shows in the UK (and isn’t exactly small on US TV)
7. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook: owner of the home to countless TV programme and advertising fan pages and conversations. Facebook without TV would be a less exciting, and visited, place.
8. James Murdoch, News Corp and BSkyB: chairman of a major UK TV company
9. Jeremy Hunt, Culture Secretary: obviously will have more than a passing interest in all things TV, especially how it is funded
10. Archie Norman, ITV: chairman of the largest commercial UK TV channel group

And we need not stop at the top 10 (at 11 is Martin Sorrell, who makes a fair bit of money from commercial TV; at 12 is Jay Hunt, controller of BBC1…).

Obviously, even I might struggle to see the TV-ness of some of the people in the 100 (Clay Shirky, [no. 93], for example – although he was only too happy to use TV interviews to plug his new book, on sale at all good bookshops priced at £20 - or you can get the gist for free here).

But my point is that, although this blog is an obviously TV-centric way of looking at it (radio and newspapers could have a go too), I’d suggest it is as valid – if not more so – as banging on endlessly about global ‘digital’ technologists.  The list should be at least as much about the people who make the content, professional or not, that makes digital platforms, broadcast and online, worth visiting.

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180 degree turn at Media 360

A few years ago, a prevailing theme at Media 360 was that TV was dead – or at least in intensive care. It was depressing (because it was nonsense).

A couple of years ago, following the launch of our joint study with the IAB looking at TV + online, the tone had shifted a little and there was a bit more positivity about TV’s future; TV was out of intensive care and walking around the ward. It was heartening.

Then, last week, its rehabilitation took a couple more strides. TV was voted the medium with the brightest future at Media 360, Thinkbox (ahem) won Best B2B Marketing at the Marketing Society Awards, and Group M announced the latest set of positive numbers for TV ad revenue (albeit coming from a low base for comparison). The narrative for TV has moved on dramatically in the last few years and this is great news.

What was even better about Media 360 was the way people talked about the internet. There was wide recognition that it is not a single medium, but a technology for delivering many different things (media included). This is a mark of its maturity. Added to this was a trend of not obsessively looking at the impact of the internet solely in terms of how destructive it might be, but instead looking at it in terms of how it benefits different media – and nothing more so than TV.

The media debate this year was refreshingly future-focused and all the so-called ‘traditional’ media found things to say that indicate a much healthier future than naysayers and digital fundamentalists have suggested in the recent – but, hopefully, quickly forgotten – past.

All in all, Media 360 – with a few exceptions – had a healthy focus on promoting and understanding the future that stood in stark contrast to the recent past. I look forward to more of this next year.

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Hulu dances back to the US

All the talk is of coalitions, of partnerships, of working together.

In telly - especially online and on-demand - there have been many coalitions recently. Some have been between broadcasters and other broadcasters, some between broadcasters and platforms. SeeSaw has successfully brought together the BBC, Channel 4 and Five; Youtube now has dedicated Channel 4 and Five channels; Wii has the iPlayer; Xbox 360 has Sky Player...the list goes on and on. On top of that, and in positions of some dominance, sit the broadcasters’ own on-demand TV websites. And there’s more in the pipeline; Project Canvas will, if allowed, bring together BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Five, Arqiva, BT and TalkTalk to bring open source on-demand TV to TV sets.

So the TV landscape in the UK is ever more complex, inter-connected and competitive, with new developments – driven by technology and human needs – happening every other day it seems.

In this context it is perhaps not surprising that Hulu, the US web TV service owned by TV companies like NBC, Disney and Fox, having ostensibly begun its journey across the Atlantic, has recently decided not to drop anchor here after all and has turned back. Just six months ago this would have been unthinkable. What has changed?

A few years ago, there were criticisms of UK broadcasters for not having yet 'got' online, and predictions that our TV companies would follow the music industry down the pan.  But then, starting with 4OD, every major UK broadcaster launched a web service, with the BBC iPlayer making a very big splash at the start of 2008.

Across the sea, Hulu was showing them how broadcaster collaboration could create a dominant web TV destination, but early UK equivalents, like Project Kangaroo, were stymied by regulators and there was worry that non-UK web TV aggregators like Hulu would be able to get established here first.

While there might have been a grain of truth in that, the fact is that UK broadcasters have now all turned up to the party. Not only that but they’ve changed the music, poured everyone fresh drinks and started a conga. Looking on from its position of dominance in the US, Hulu must have thought it not worth trying to grab the dancing hips at the back of the line in the UK.

Added to this is the fact that some guests who got to the party in good time have either run out of booze or things to say and have slipped quietly out of the back door. Much was made of the likes of Joost and Zattoo and Bebo, but they burned brightly and briefly. There will be more like this no doubt as the market and viewers settle down.

So, while we watch our politicians getting it together, it is gratifying that our broadcasters already have, and unsurprising that Hulu doesn’t fancy the immense effort it would take to make a big impression in the UK on-demand TV market.

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John (and Janet) Lewis

I was struck when reviewing this month’s Thinkboxes’ shortlist firstly by what an incredibly powerful set of ads they are, and secondly by the fact that, as a group, they seem to share a particular vibe which is distinctive but which I found hard to define.

I eventually realised that the word I was grasping for was ‘feminine’, without wishing to be too reductive. It seems to me that they all share a certain identifiably feminine aesthetic and that it is unusual to see this as the common thread among a set of award-shortlisted ads. 

How might ‘feminine’ advertising be characterised? Well, therein lies a 5000-word dissertation, but in the interests of brevity I’d say that it's about a particular set of words or associations: a focus on relationships and communication, a human story, a warm, romantic and compassionate tone, and an unashamedly emotional appeal. These of course are not qualities that only women display but are generally characteristic of women, especially when present together.  All this is particularly true of the recent John Lewis ad, about which much has already been written.
 
Emotion is key here - one of TV’s great strengths. But the word ‘emotional’ in business is more often than not used pejoratively. It's the great ‘feminine’ weakness and a criticism levelled at female leaders - and possibly some male ones too. The thinking goes that a logical and rational approach is the key to business success.  In advertising creative terms, this can lead to more message-driven communication and at times some stridency (again, not exclusively masculine traits but characteristic). 

I’d like to reclaim the word ‘emotional’ from any negative use; it’s one of the most positive words you can use, especially in advertising. Study after study shows the superiority of the emotional over the rational in advertising, and the advertisers who recognise this reap great rewards. But a more rational approach – which obviously has its place – often dominates our advertising value system.

Whilst musing on this, I read that John Lewis’ sales increased by 40% in the week following the launch of its new ad, showing the power of emotion in action. Maybe some advertisers are missing an opportunity if they focus too much and too often on the ‘message’ without creating the feeling. 

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That’s Numberwang!

Twitter announced last month that it had reached its ten billionth tweet.  That, dear readers, is Numberwang.  The news provoked the esteemed Claire Beale to comment that Twitter had therefore become a ‘mass medium’.  

Brand Republic recently ran the following story:  ‘A cinema ad for South African Tourism delivered an estimated 451,289 impacts last weekend, according to figures from cinema sales house Digital Cinema Media’; this was shortly followed by another story about cinema delivering ‘at least one million impacts over the weekend’ for a new ad from Puma. More classic cases of Numberwanging.

We’re no better at Thinkbox; we can Numberwang with the best.  We have taken to telling people that 2.5 billion TV ads are seen every day in the UK, at normal speed.  In our monthly reports we now have a page where we list the brands with the most ‘views’ in the month (fyi in February it was Morrisons with 695 million TV ‘views’).

All of those numbers are accurate – but what do they mean?  

Rather than bandy about 2.5 billion TV ads a day, it’s infinitely more helpful to tell people that the average person sees 43 each day. Rather than the baffling number of 695 million impacts, it would be more meaningful to say that 87% of the UK had seen the Morrisons’ ad an average of 14 times in February.   Or that 0.8% of the UK population saw the South African Tourism cinema ad once each that weekend (i.e. like buying one spot in a repeat of Rising Damp on ITV3).  

When Mitchell and Webb first created their brilliant Numberwang sketch, about a gameshow based on utterly meaningless and absurdly random numbers, it’s tempting to think they had the media industry in mind.  On the surface, it looks like there may be some method to the maths; but it is in fact just plain madness. Numberwanging is the (ab)use of statistics to impress and divert people, but ultimately to obfuscate rather than enlighten.

This obsession with quoting the highest number possible is rooted in the web’s supreme ‘countability’, its transparency and its global footprint.  It’s easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy for journalists to quote the latest number of views of TV ads from YouTube.  But were those 10 million views of the Cadbury’s Gorilla from 10 million different people or 1 million people watching it 10 times each?  Were they all from the UK or supplemented by views from Peru and Korea?  YouTube syndrome has even led to ad agencies dismissing the hundreds of million views in their TV campaign as ’just a few TV spots’ thereby confusing cause and effect.

I hope you can forgive us offline media, often with restricted local and national footprints, for amassing the most impressive numbers we can muster as a response to the fashion for online Numberwanging.  

The internet can turn up some very big numbers but has a relative paucity of metrics that equate to crucial media concepts like reach and frequency - metrics that enable us to compare the significance of a local medium with a global one.  UKOM will fill some of those gaps and I genuinely can’t wait.

But back to Twitter.  Is it a ‘mass medium’ yet?  Maybe, but the 10 billionth tweet stat doesn’t help me answer you; I reckon at least a third of them have been written by @adlandsuit for a start.   

A decade ago the very wise Ken New, when discussing the burgeoning medium of commercial radio, said that he thought it couldn’t be called a mass medium until about 70% of the population used it every week.  Let’s be less demanding and say 50% reach each week; I think Twitter is some way off that anywhere in the world.  The IAB website says that 17% of the global online audience uses Twitter.  But in the UK it’s over half-way to cracking 50% penetration with 42% of the 65% adult UK online population signed up to Twitter – i.e. 27.3% of the total population.  Can’t help you on the frequency of use though, sadly.

But not a single one of all the many numbers quoted so far in this blog is going to help you decide how to spend your marketing money, the sort of numbers you can only get from rigorous econometrics and proper effectiveness research.  If you fancy some of those, have a look here.

I wish I could promise that we at Thinkbox, from this moment on, will eschew all temptation to impress you with the biggest legitimate TV numbers that exist. We will if other media will.  But will they?  Unlikely, I suspect.  We shall all just have to continue to be a bunch of Numberwangers.

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A load of WOM-bull

As Uncle Bulgaria could have told you, it’s a lifetime’s work clearing up the rubbish that litters the marketing landscape.  One of the current topics flapping annoyingly in the breeze is all the nonsense uttered about ‘word of mouth’, or WOM for short.

Most weeks you’ll find a story about some brand abandoning brand advertising and instead investing in a WOM strategy.  Last year, I attended two conferences where the same speaker – a renowned expert in the social media space – put up a chart headed “Word of mouth is the new television”.  

It’s difficult to know quite where to start with such a statement, but I’ll have a go.

It makes the frankly barking assumption that the ‘old’ television – i.e. real television – is being replaced; it thinks of media experiences as neat little silos that don’t overlap; and it fails to recognise that ‘word of mouth’ of any significance cannot exist in a vacuum and relies on the media it is apparently ‘replacing’ to provide the oxygen.

Part of the problem is that practitioners in this space see WOM as a new media channel, primarily via social media online.  But WOM has existed since the dawn of language. It has always been part of the marketing ‘eco-system’ and it is indeed very important.  At least we can agree on that.

New research from US WOM specialists Keller Fay puts the debate into focus. They have produced a WOM monitoring tool, based on the reported conversations of over 36,000 people. Not only does the research demonstrate the huge influence WOM has on our brand perceptions and experiences, it also highlights where these conversations are taking place and which brands they feature, as well as what causes them.

Only 6% of brand-related conversations take place online.  A further 15% are conducted on the ‘phone, whilst over three quarters are conducted  via our preferred social media platform: face-to-face.

Another sobering thought is that the conversations digerati might be having among themselves are not necessarily a reflection of the wider world. The top categories for brand-related conversations are food and dining, followed by media and entertainment. Technology is sixth on the list. Similarly, the top five talked about brands are Coke, Pepsi, Wal-Mart and two telecoms companies; not a Twitter or Apple amongst them.

But perhaps the most exciting finding for those of us in the marketing industry is that almost half of all consumer brand conversations refer directly to those brands’ marketing or media activity, and that the biggest single factor influencing those conversations is good old brand advertising.

If we bring into the mix TV’s ability to create talkability and ‘buzz’ around brands (as demonstrated by both the IPA ‘Marketing in the Era of Accountability’ study and YouGov’s Brand Index data) then we realise how much we need tools to identify and optimise these amplification effects.

Our recent research with Facebook started to explore the rich rewards available to brands which recognise and nurture the relationship between TV ads and facilitated WOM.

The good news is that the IPA Touchpoints study will be including metrics based around the Keller Fay findings in this year’s data. I’m looking forward to using it, not least to  finally bin the ridiculous notion that TV and word of mouth are unrelated and replacements for each other, rather than the fabulously complementary phenomena that they are.

More cushions on the virtual sofa

I saw an ad for Sony's new generation of internet TVs this morning. The interesting part about it was the new functionalities it chose to focus on; in this case, the ability to merge Facebook and Twitter into the TV viewing experience.

A lot of discussion has taken place about what internet-enabled TVs will be used for. As one of those lucky people invited to the launch of Microsoft’s Web TV product over a decade ago, I am pretty sure it won’t be what Microsoft had in mind; lots of unrelated information appearing over the TV content being viewed. TV is an immersive (and predominantly shared) experience and anything that distracts from that experience will generally not be welcomed.

Instead, it will be web-delivered apps that enhance the TV experience that are most likely to succeed in this market.  Along with enhanced search for on-demand TV content, I can think of few that improve the TV viewing experience as well as being able to ‘chat’ about it with our friends and family. This is what people have done with TV since the year dot and, as our recent TV Together research demonstrated, if they don’t have anybody in the room to share it with, then the ‘virtual sofa’ created by our increasing array of communication tools – phoning, texting, Messengering, emailing and now the social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter – do the job very nicely.  

So I think that the integration of social media is a sensible use of broadband-connected TV sets.  Two notes of caution though; because TV viewing is a mostly shared experience, on-screen chat about what you’re watching might not go down well with the rest of the family.  And people are already using separate devices - fixed and mobile ‘phones and laptops - that deliver this functionality very well so it might not be a killer app that will sell these TVs on its own.  But we welcome any new development that lets people share their telly love more easily.

The virtual sofa just got comfier.

Nike's Glee?

The nauseatingly cute and diverse young cast of Glee has been summoned to the White House to perform for the Obamas this Easter. But our favourite character from the show won't be there; Sue Sylvester (actress Jane Lynch) will be busy washing her Adidas track suits.

You've probably been reading about the proposed relaxations in the rules for paid product placement in UK TV.  One of the arguments used to Ofcom by its champions is that we are already seeing plenty of US TV with paid placement in them and the world hasn't spun off its axis.

In Glee, Sue Sylvester wears nothing but Adidas and has now modelled every style "in all of the colours and all of the sizes."  It's hard to believe that Adidas has had any say in its products being used to adorn this paranoid sadist.  But if someone told me Nike had been involved, I'd be tempted to believe them.    

Just think what fun some brand could have making Frank Gallagher drink or wear one of its competitors.  I'm sure Ofcom has thought of that...

An Adlantic divide

One of the many marvels of Google is Google Alerts. It allows me to appear as though I am very widely read indeed.

So I thought I’d mention an interesting article I spotted in the New York Times. It was about the fact that the winners of the BTAAs, which took place last week (the ‘beef’ has nearly been digested), are about to tour the US.

The BTAAs were, as ever, a great window into the best British TV advertising. Personal highlights from the winners include T-Mobile’s ‘Dance’, which I will never tire of no matter how many times I see it; The Department of Transport’s hugely powerful ‘Live with it’; and Weetabix’s return to glory days with ‘Steeplechase’.  It was also great to hand over some more glittering prizes to Alexandr Orlov, and to scoop an award ourselves for our TV ad (had to mention it). But I was surprised and sad to see Hula Hoops leave with a lowly diploma. Still, we can’t all agree.

So, to the piece in the New York Times. It began with the headline ‘British TV ads flaunt their arty side’. At the heart of the piece was this thought:

“British commercials have long been known for their creativity and innovation. But from an artistic standpoint, most American advertising, perhaps except for those made for the Super Bowl or the Web, pale in comparison with their British counterparts. And unsurprisingly, British ads have long attracted a huge following in America.”

And it included this comment from Richard Silverstein, co-chairman and creative director of the San Francisco-based advertising firm Goodby, Silverstein & Partners:

“In general, TV advertising has always been a high form of public art in the U.K...People over there watch commercials as if they are entertainment.”

This is not true of all TV ads – nor will everyone agree on what is entertaining – but in general it certainly is true of many of the most successful ads. They entertain and elicit an emotional response. YouTube gives us a nice window into this world of ads-as-entertainment.

Whether or not you agree with the idea that the UK does creativity better (and I’d be interested to know what people over here think), the piece lead me to thinking about how, in the UK, likeable and ‘creative’ ads have been proved to be more effective in business terms by the IPA, in its seminal ‘Marketing in the era of accountability’, and by Thinkbox, in our own Engagement Study.

As an industry, we depend on those brave advertisers who both buy into and buy the work, and who don’t obsess about easier to measure but less significant metrics such as recall. The facts are there that show the business power of creativity.

Most irritating things in media: ‘Interruption’. No. 4 in an occasional series

Right then.  So far, we’ve had a dig at digital, a pop at passive, and blown a long raspberry at long-form video; it’s time now to get irate because of the way we obsess about ‘interruption’ in our industry.

This is a quote from Dr Samuel Johnson (the real one, not the even-more-amusing @DrSamuelJohnson on Twitter) in 1759 from The Idler:

“Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetick.” (I’m guessing that ‘pathetic’ doesn’t mean crap but more pathos-provoking).

It’s interesting that even 250 years ago there were apparently too many ads, but even more so is that he identified the need to ‘cut through’ the noise with magnificence and eloquence and emotion; surely still three ingredients of all good  brand communication.

In a way, Johnson was also talking about the notion of interruption. Interruption in advertising, we are so often told, is a bad thing. Johnson’s contemporaries may have been captured by it, but sophisticated, empowered consumers do not want to have commercial messages thrust at them; they need to be engaged by modern brands and to start conversations with them.

I’m not going to argue that engagement isn’t key and that conversations with consumers aren’t a great ambition for a brand to have.  But I do believe that you can’t expect people to ’pull’ a brand until it has ‘pushed’ in some way; you can’t have a conversation until you’ve been introduced.

There is a myriad of ways a brand can choose from to push themselves in front of people for the first time – including retail facings, PR, doordrops, posters etc. etc. – but all involve occupying either a consumer’s space or time. But, without making that overture on their own terms, brands would be entirely subject to random and commoditised searching, which is no way to be the guardian of a brand.

All brand communications are essentially a form of interruption but some have greater potential for annoyance: the inserts that drop out of a mag, a pop-up, branding on a public venue, unsolicited mail, whether off- or online.  None of those are ever expected and rarely reward the space and time that they occupy.  Print, online and outdoor ads are arguably much less annoying but perhaps only because they are more easily edited out or ignored.

Is this an unresolvable conundrum? Is it simply impossible for a brand to create impact and get noticed without being a pain?  

Broadcast ads are a slightly different case I’d argue; radio and TV ads are not unexpected, at least not on commercial channels. I would argue they are not even interruption because, with a few exceptions, the content they appear within is constructed specially to contain them. Like the doors and windows of a house, they are part of the overall design and are in-built, not rammed in.  It doesn’t stop them from being annoying on occasions though.

There will always be a vocal minority who avoid all advertising per se, be it TV, radio, banners, pop-ups or posters. There will always be some who reach for their remote when the TV ads appear (although we know from BARB that people are watching more TV ads at normal speed than ever before at a time when many have intuitive technologies that enable them to avoid them should they really wish).

But lots of people enjoy lots of TV ads a lot. Lots of them. We’ve plenty of footage of them doing just that: dancing, clapping, salivating, singing, searching, smiling, reciting the dialogue. They don’t mind being interrupted if we make it worth their while (cf. Bill Bernbach). In fact the word interruption wouldn’t even occur to them unless the ad was bad. Even the less entertaining ads are welcome if they are relevant, timely and tell viewers something they want to know (e.g. 10% off tomorrow).
 
Even when ads are not welcomed with unbridled joy, many of our research projects have revealed that most people understand and accept the implicit commercial contract whereby advertising subsidises the programmes they love. This contract is reinforced when broadcasters make their content more accessible and convenient.

How many ‘conversations’ with brands would we all have to have in order to reach even a tenth of the audience reached by the 2.45 billion TV ads seen every day in the UK? There are around 7,800 brands advertising on TV, divide that by the population and, even if each of us had conversations with 10 brands, the average brand would only have around 70,000 ‘friends’ and precious little opportunity to influence the other 53 million members of the population.

Engagement has to start somewhere. Few brands can sit around waiting for consumers to come along and engage with what they're up to. The problem is not a structural one but qualitative and tonal.  As Martin Boase said, so long as brands interrupt with grace and charm they will become welcome guests in the nation’s living rooms, and ones who might be invited into other areas of people’s lives too.   Let’s stop worrying about the interruption part and start obsessing instead on the engagement.





 

What are we reaching for?

I attended the Mediatel ‘Future of Online’ seminar recently, where much was made of the launch of UKOM, the online industry’s attempt to get a measure of exposure and reach with the aim of attracting more brand display revenues. It has been a tortured process.

Now, this may seem strange, given that TV achieves levels of reach that other media channels can only dream about, but I think we need to think beyond exposure and reach in terms of planning integrated media campaigns.

Yes, I know that commercial TV delivers nearly three quarters of the UK population every day and well over 90% every week, across the vast majority of target demographics, but comparisons with other media based on such data disguise the real impact each medium creates. This camouflage comes from the media measurement systems themselves.

All of the main metrics – reach, frequency, impacts, impressions, ratings – are based on the concept of opportunity to see/listen/read, and yet the difference between opportunity and delivery will vary hugely depending on the media measurement vehicle.

TV measures the audience in the room whilst the set is on, minute by minute, so that we can be confident that all of those featured in the measurement will have had some exposure, even if they had their backs to the screen – especially as BARB carries out coincidental checks to make sure who is reported to be in the room at any moment in time is in fact present.

Press readership, meanwhile, is based on anybody who has spent at least two minutes reading or looking at any printed copy in the past 12 months, whether or not they even opened the page on which the ad appears; consequently, actual exposure to the ad itself requires a much greater leap of faith.

My understanding is that online ‘reach’ will fall somewhere between these two extremes. My point is that, when these reach numbers are placed in a media plan, they are generally considered to be equivalent in value and impact.

Results from a really interesting study by the Television Bureau of Canada helps to put some of this disparity, or false equivalence, into perspective. They observed people watching TV, reading newspapers, listening to radio and interacting online in as natural a context as possible. They used a wide range of biometric and cognitive measures, including eye tracking, in order to determine how long each ad was ‘processed’. On average, the TV advertising generated more than three times the engagement of radio ads (and, possibly connected with this finding, almost three times the next day adjusted recall levels). TV ads achieved 40% more next day recall and 80% more engagement than online video (via pre-rolls). TV delivered five times the next day recall and twelve times the visual attention of online display in general. Against press, meanwhile, TV achieved more than five times the total advertising engagement.

The problem with the media measurement vehicles is that they cannot account for these differences in engagement, attention or recall, and so if an overall reach figure is achieved from a mix of media channels, it will treat them all as equal. There is nothing quite like a spreadsheet for providing the appearance of consistency and equivalence, however what happens in the lives of the consumers they reach, and the brands advertising in those media, will provide a very different story.

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Online and over here

Amid the cutbacks and regulations that have hamstrung some advertising categories, there is one that has recorded rapid and continual growth in the money invested in advertising in general, and TV in particular. It is a category that has access to a wealth of data to evaluate the success of its marketing activities, much of it instantaneous. It has witnessed rapid growth in sales revenues and the number of brands entering the market. I am talking, of course, about online brands.

Yesterday morning, we held an event (and streamed it live online) looking at this phenomenon and exploring why it is happening and how best for online brands to use TV. We’ll be making it available on the Thinkbox website to watch in the coming weeks.

It is amazing to think that only five years ago this market category hardly appeared on the radar. In 2004 a total of 34 brands spent less than £10 million a year on TV. Last year the market was worth over £180 million to TV, with a total of 239 brands accounting for 5.5% of all TV advertising revenues; and that doesn’t include the 20+ programme sponsorships in which they also invested. It is an average annual growth rate of 172%.

Other media have also benefitted from this dynamic market, but it is TV where these online brands have invested the vast bulk of their money. In fact, TV accounted for nearly three quarters of their offline media spend in 2009.

There are many reasons for this. The complementary nature of TV and online means that TV drives online response better than any other media channel.  But it is not only response generation that is responsible for TV being the predominant marketing channel for online brands. It is TV’s ability to build brands, through fame and emotion, which has kept them coming back.

For brands that have little or no physical presence, the ability to create an emotional connection with its consumers becomes even more important. Meanwhile, the power of fame to create word of mouth, awareness and, most important of all, trust cannot be denied, as the 700,000 Facebook fans of Aleksandr the Meerkat would no doubt agree.

Also, the growing phenomenon of ‘two-screen viewing’ – concurrent consumption of TV and online – has helped facilitate response. A brand can go from initial awareness to purchase during the course of a single commercial break, making TV a point of sale medium in these circumstances. New research we’ve just carried out shows that 94% of the UK claims to have gone online as a direct result of something they’ve watched on TV in the last 12 months.

Consumers’ growing confidence online means they instinctively know where to go when a TV commercial engages them and creates demand for a product or service. Our growing arsenal of evaluation tools demonstrates TV’s significant role in this process more and more and online brands have been voting with their budgets.


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Falling in love with Google

One of the regular taunts Thinkbox gets is that Google has become the biggest brand in the world without using TV advertising.  We usually respond by saying a) no-one says you can't build a brand without using TV, it's just easier and quicker if you do and b) brands which occupy significant real estate have a great advantage.  Marks and Spencer eschewed any advertising for decades; significant presence on the high street plus great products meant they managed fine for a very long time.  

Google owns the biggest bit of online real estate imaginable; 80% of online journeys start by going through a search gateway, mostly Google's.  Google is dominant because it is a fantastic search product; it has become the generic for the category and entered the dictionary.  Until something comes along that improves on it (Bing?) why would we swap brands?   But such things do happen; the majority of us now do the ‘hoovering’ with a Dyson.

Google did in fact advertise its Chrome browser on TV last year but, until last night, had not done so for its core search business.  It did however invest in a series of classy films that have been available online, including YouTube, for the last three months.  

Last night it bit the bullet and bought a big fat TV spot in the Super Bowl in order to share one of these with a much wider audience.  This is the one it used.  Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO hinted at this on Twitter on Saturday saying:  “Can't wait to watch the Super Bowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said "Hell has indeed frozen over."”)

I kept an eye on this ad after I saw that.  Up to the moment I went to bed last night at about 11.30pm it had received 1.4m views online.  That’s impressive.  But its one spot in the Super Bowl will have been seen by about 100m people and I’m sure that its online views will now go through the roof because the ads that go viral big-time are the ones where TV starts the ball rolling.  

The Google ad is classic TV in that it uses demonstration, emotion and story-telling to build deeper affinity to a great product.  I’ve been saying for a while that Google perhaps could be even more successful if it added some emotional attributes to its brand; it would help protect them against a rationally superior competitor who could emerge at any time.  Respect is good, but respect plus love is dynamite for brands.  Their TV ad, a 50” story about falling in love in Paris, is one way of making viewers fall in love with Google themselves. I’m sure it will also do wonders for their staff morale as a side benefit.

Has “hell frozen over”? I hope Eric Schmidt’s comment was tongue in cheek, because I hate the way people try to position TV and online media as locked mortal enemies.  Search is no less effective than it was before Google went on TV, just as TV is no less brilliant when presenters advise viewers to follow their favourite shows via social media.   In the UK, we have found Google to be (mostly) collaborative and respectful to TV, prepared to speak at our events and to share data that proves TV’s effect on search.  Search is one of the best ways we can demonstrate TV’s effectiveness, so we quite like Google.   If they keep spending money on TV, maybe even we could fall in love.

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Raging against which machine?

A couple of weekends ago I was fascinated by all the chat on Twitter about Johnny Depp; he had been killed in a car crash apparently.  Except that he wasn’t dead.  Oh yes he was, oh no he wasn’t.  So determined were the scammers they had even mocked up a superficially convincing CNN.com homepage link that was doing the rounds.  Let me make it clear for all Johnny Depp fans, he is NOT dead - or not, at least, at the time of writing.

But it was a perfect example of how easy it is for mischief to spread, how hard it is to authenticate sources in all forms of gossip, and how very vulnerable Twitter is to manipulation, whether for fun, evil or just plain old profit.

Which brings me to the Rage Against The Machine vs Joe McElderry Christmas no 1 hoo-ha.  This is not about musical taste. I would rather stick knitting needles through my ears than have to listen to either for any longer than it would take   to block them up with cotton wool.
 
The online campaign to prevent the X Factor winner from becoming the Christmas no 1 was initially presented as a spontaneous grassroots uprising against the forces of evil (aka Simon Cowell).  Maybe it was.  But I have also heard that it was a brilliantly executed piece of PR by RATM’s record company, Sony, (of which Simon Cowell also happens to be a director), which managed to dupe large numbers of people into buying a track that many hadn’t even heard – and sometimes disliked intensely when they heard it - in the belief that they were striking a blow for freedom.  Mmmm, conspiracy theory gone overboard?  The trouble is I have no idea which of those it was.

Let’s take the RATM campaign at face value for a moment.  Those who took part  positioned the 12m+ people who watched the X Factor, and the many millions who chose to vote and subsequently chose to buy recordings of any finalist and the winner as no more than mindless morons who did Simon Cowell’s bidding.   They, by contrast, were intellectually superior, anti-marketing, independently minded guardians of quality music.  

This sort of aristocratic arrogance is not uncommon on Twitter.   But in reality they were as much subject to the X Factor’s influence as anyone else, on the principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  When they pause to question who actually made them buy Rage Against the Machine they will find that it was Mr Simon Cowell, probably unintentionally, but also quite possibly deliberately.

Having watched the excellent Virtual Revolution on BBC2, a history of the internet, it’s clear that the web has been a massive democratiser and leveller and given a voice to many who would be denied one otherwise.  But it’s dangerous to treat it with quasi-religious reverence; we all need to maintain normal levels of scepticism and caution.

From now on, I am going to tread carefully before I get swept up in any online campaign until I can be satisfied what its origins – and motives – are.  And before I believe anything I read on Twitter, I am going to check it out with some professional, accredited, transparent journalistic source.  Here’s hoping there are a few left.  And before I sign off, please join me in my campaign to make the English Baroque Soloists’ recording of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio the 2010 Festive no 1 in which I promise I have no vested interest.

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