TV advertising -- take another look, you might like what you see

It’s no secret that video consumption is growing. Fast. As more devices find their places in people’s homes and pockets, more video consumption is happening across live and time-shifted TV, computers, tablets, and mobile phones. What is most interesting, is while online video consumption has exploded, time spent watching TV has in fact also continued to grow, with the average US adult clocking in 158 hours of TV time per month.*

People are simply consuming more content than ever before and TV is still the center of that experience, remaining an effective way to broadcast your message to a national audience of engaged viewers. What's more is the link between TV and online behavior continues to emerge and strengthen, especially considering that nearly 60% of people now watch TV and surf the internet simultaneously.* If you're rolling your eyes at the prospect of spending media dollars on a mass medium like TV, hear us out because we believe that television advertising is still relevant and has become better targeted. Whether you’re a seasoned TV buyer or just beginning to think about offline media, a strategic approach to integrating TV into your larger media plan is absolutely critical. When planning, consider the following: marketing objectives, target audience, and seasonality.

Identifying marketing objectives is the first, most crucial step. What are the outcomes you’re anticipating from TV advertising? Is the goal of your campaign general branding or to increase sales of a specific product? As you can tell, different objectives lead to a very different budget allocation, core message (approach to creative), and campaign success metrics. For example, if your TV campaign goal is to sell 1,000,000 units of product X, your creative should contain specific production information, direct calls-to-action and at least one sales outlet (i.e. 1-800 number , a specific website URL, in-store coupon code, or all of the above). Using trackable mechanisms brings a new dimension to ROI measurement in TV, especially with innovations like Google's call reporting feature.

What about targeting? Increased viewership fragmentation within the TV universe (more program/network choices in any given time slot) has actually make it easier to pinpoint your target audience on TV since programming has become so interest specific. For instance, to reach females 25-54 who enjoy cooking and gardening, networks including Food Network and HGTV immediately come to mind. What’s great about Google’s TV Ads platform is that we’ve taken targeting even further by introducing technology and search-based targeting tools to the TV buying process. Google TV Ads allows you to choose specific networks, programs and even defined audiences based on demographics and interests. These features allow you to find and target your audience across 100+ networks reaching nearly 35M homes in the US, or almost 1/3 of the US population through one single platform.*

Lastly, timing and seasonality are of key importance. If your product or service is impacted by seasonality, it’s important to plan well in advance. For example, New Year resolutions bring finances, weight loss and fitness to people’s minds – a perfect opportunity for advertisers in these spaces to increase marketing efforts and reach consumers at this critical time. Planning in advance will allow you to have the required budgets and a sense of which media targets to hit as we ring in the New Year. To learn more about Google TV Ads and how to launch a targeted TV campaign in minutes, please visit www.google.com/tvads.

*Source: The Nielsen Company., Three Screen Report Q1’2010
*Google TV Ads will offer nearly 35M homes in 2011 with the integration of new cable partners DIRECTV and Verizon FiOs.

Posted by Chris Henrotin and Neha Mandel, TV Ads Team