Myth Busting TV Advertising
Here we look at the myths that are still present about TV. It’s all part of what makes TV seem unreachable for brands. But when you know the facts it’s not half as scary as you think! This topic is massive but I will summarise.
So what are the myths?
People don’t watch as much TV
People skip through the ads
Nobody pays attention to ads
Online is where it is at
Let’s take them one at a time.
FALSE - ‘People don’t watch as much TV’
Broadcaster TV accounts for 58% of our video day. We watch over 5 hours of broadcast TV per day. The other main players are YouTube and Tik Tok but the larger of the two (YouTube) only accounts for 15% of our video day, so you can see that TV is still the most viewed platform and this hasn’t changed much in 10 years. TV has just got smarter at holding people’s interest, with the development of smart TVs, and VOD (video on demand) or SVOD (subscription TV like Netflix or Prime). 80.7% of us have access to broadcaster VOD on TV sets, so that’s the majority then!
Audience share of attention
Whilst we may have watched more TV during the pandemic, with news channels broadcasting 24/7 and householders being home more, TV viewing has returned to pre-pandemic levels. And this is made up of live TV, TV playback, broadcaster VOD and subscription VOD.
FALSE: People skip the ads
In total, 2.2 billion TV ads are seen in the UK every day and 65% of adults watch over 50 linear ads a week.
87% of the ads we watch in a day is made up of broadcaster TV. Compare this to YouTube which is the next biggest ad platform, and this accounts for a measly 9.4% of ad viewing. Full disclosure - this increases to 23% for 16-34yr olds. Though compared to TV which is 68% for the same bracket (16-34s), TV still trumps other platforms.
Broadcast viewing data
Nobody pays attention to the ads
It is true that more people are watching on-demand services, but it is not the case that the ads are skipped. In fact this is not possible on the main broadcaster channels. Secondly most of the habitual viewing of Live TV is in the genre of news and sports, so people choose to view this live with its ads, rather than record the live event and watch as a time shift, where they may skip ads.
The other thing to consider is that unlike other online advertising platforms, broadcasters charge advertisers for the full spot length. Which means you only pay if people watch the whole ad. In other words you don’t pay if people to skip the ads. Compare this to online platforms, which consider a few seconds worthy of a view, which counts as an impression, and this makes up the ‘impression rate’. This is an all too often inflated figure in the online space.
On average an individual watches 32 ads per day on linear TV. In collecting data BARB only include the full playout of the ad. So the data only includes ads watched in real time. And in real terms that means that 2.2 BILLION ads are watched in the UK every day. That swings a wrecking ball through the myth then!
On average, each individual sees 36 linear ads a day
In addition, a study by Mediacom and Viewers’ Logic, showed that, during ad breaks, people were using a second screen 32% of the time so you’d expect to see viewers visiting websites about 32% of the time if we assume that multi-screening has no effect on TV advertising.
In reality, they saw that 56% of web visits happened while the users were multi-screening. In other words, if you catch a viewer while they’re using their phone or another device, the chance that they’ll follow up on the ad is 1.75 times higher than if they weren’t multi-screening.
And finally…Online is where it’s at
The biggest spending category of advertiser on TV is now online brands.
In 2020, online brands accounted for a staggering £778m of spend on TV. Clearly online brands understand the online world inside out. In terms of optimisation, how to track customers through CRM, and how to target their customer. And yet so many online brands spend a huge amount of their marketing budget on TV advertising. It’s obvious that TV provides them with something extra, something that can’t be achieve by marketing solely in the online space.
A study done by Ebiquity shows that when you look at actual completion of ad viewing, so a viewer watching 50% or 100% of the ad, the impression rates drop to almost invisible levels on some online channels. As mentioned, advertisers are not charged for TV ads which viewers don’t watch.
Comparing YouTube and Facebook Impressions
I wish I had a buzzer every time I heard a myth. This chapter covers a fair bit of ground with a single purpose - to give you the proof of why TV advertising is so valuable and vital to businesses of all shapes and sizes – more so now than perhaps ever.
Find out more about TV by emailing team@studio90media.co.uk