The eye magnet

As I sometimes get called ‘Statto’ it is only fitting that I start with a stat.

99% of our time spent looking at AV content on screens at home is spent looking at the screen of a TV set (for digital natives only that figure is 98%). So says a new ethnographic study in the US by Nielsen/CRE. The screens of PCs, laptops, games consoles, mobiles etc. make up the remainder of our home screen time, says the study.

There are obvious reasons behind our preference for the largest of the small screens when it comes to watching TV. Among other things, you don’t have to hold it, squint at it, wear earphones to use it, refresh it, or uncomfortably crowd round it to share the experience. That 99% highlights that it is still a compromise to watch TV on a laptop, PC or mobile, although it is a compromise that will have to be made less often as online TV services arrive on TV sets.

But the main thing about TV sets are that they usually look the best and, with upwards of 40% of UK households owning HD ready sets, more are looking better all the time.

HD is just one of the technologies that have made the TV viewing experience more attractive and have magnetised viewing to the living room. Along with larger screens (growing about an inch a year), surround sound, digital television recorders…recent massive consumer investment in TV equipment has created a higher impact experience.

And so we watch more. The CRE study found that HD increases viewing by more than 5% (especially sports), backing up another US report – from Myers – that found claimed engagement with advertising on HD channels for viewers with HD sets was a whopping 10% higher than for standard definition.

And so to the future. As convergence gathers pace, new viewing developments like HD, Super-HD and 3D are likely to raise the bar in terms of what viewers expect of content formats. In doing so, I think there’s a good chance that they will maintain clear water between the standards of professional ‘TV’ content and the longer tail of niche or user generated video content.

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It looks like a duck. It must be a horse.

Has Samuel Beckett become a headline writer at The Guardian? I ask because one of their recent headlines was so absurd, so fist-bitingly contradictory that I spat out my snail porridge and had to have a lie down.

The piece was about Hulu launching in the UK. The headline was: 'With all this online, why watch TV?'

It might as well have been ‘With all this internet shopping, why shop?’ or ‘With all this blogging, why write?’.

It’s times like this I wish I could ban headlines, or at least vet those that have the words TV and online in them. Headlines are the boastful show-off who wants your attention and is willing to say anything to get it. This is fine with straightforward issues like ‘Man found hanging out of goat’ or ‘England cruise to Ashes victory', but most media and advertising issues are more nuanced. There’s no little irony in the fact that they can’t always be reduced to catchy slogans.

This particular headline evoked a definition of TV from the 1950s. But things have moved on a bit since then.

The problem is a misunderstanding of TV’s relationship with the internet. TV is about content; the internet is one of the ways we can now deliver it to anything with a glass screen. They are wildly, lovingly and blissfully complementary. They are not on two sides of a fence.

When TV content crosses into cyberspace, it doesn’t magically stop being TV (although some start weirdly calling it video). In fact, simple, free catch-up TV online is stopping viewers falling out of the broadcast stream. It’s a trampoline that bounces them back in.

Most importantly of all, if you ask non-media people what they’re doing when they watch Corrie, Peep Show or The Gadget Show online they’ll say they’re “watching TV…on the internet/my computer”.

If it looks like a duck...

Plouffe of effectiveness

Maybe it’s the heat, but some recent commentary has got a bit carried away when interpreting what certain wins at Cannes portend for TV. The successes of the fantastic Obama campaign and Tribal DDB’s brilliant ‘Carousel’ - an online film for Philips TVs – have got some a little over-excited.

There is a small but noisy contingent desperate to prolong a TV versus internet polemic; so when what is effectively an online TV ad wins at Cannes they absurdly pronounce the death of TV advertising, much as they announced that online advertising can’t be working when Google started using TV to promote Chrome.

Away from the theorists and bloggers, in the real world brands are just getting on and finding out what works best for them.  Increasing numbers are realizing that the combination of TV with online activity is really rather good - not least many online brands – and the Obama campaign is one of these.  After Obama’s success there was an unseemly rush of media claiming credit for it, but few wrote about TV’s contribution.  

So, saying more that I could hope to and not having the burden of being expected to say it, it is worth listening to David Plouffe, the brains behind the Obama campaign. His measured words help cut through any apocalyptic froth. Talking about the Cannes success he said: "It is fashionable to suggest that TV ads are less and less important, but we needed to have balance, and they were incredibly important to the campaign.”

I would add that it wasn’t just TV ads, but TV appearances, live broadcast debates and speeches plus events and rallies that inspired people to believe in Obama and make them want to interact with him and his campaign online and in person.  Plouffe values the relationship that TV can start but sees that the most effective ad campaigns of all are integrated. Those celebrating the Obama campaign’s intelligent internet-ness are right to, but they must also acknowledge its terrific TV-ness, otherwise they risk missing a vital engine that made it work. Just as Democrats worked together to win, so do media.

Plouffe made some interesting points about how they used TV advertising; they wanted the reach and emotional connection of TV but opted for longer 2 minute ads, thereby sacrificing frequency for depth.  In the final week they bought a whole half-hour slot.  Maybe this is something that other brands can learn from.

As Plouffe does, let’s understand and acknowledge the contribution that every aspect of the marketing mix makes, let’s stop – sometimes willfully – confusing accountability with effectiveness, and let’s not get so overheated about false dawns.