The State of TV Advertising Now That the Super Bowl Is Over

On Sunday, millions of people watched 4-1/2 hours of Live TV.

Today, millions of people will do the same.

As covered in my previous post, despite the popular reporting that TV is Dead, the medium is actually alive, well — and changing.  Live TV viewing is holding steady at 4-1/2 hours per day.  Much of that viewing happens on an actual TV.  At the same time, audiences are adopting new ways to watch TV, like DVRs, OTT, Online and Mobile.  It seems like we have video everywhere.

It's all TV

In the same way this blog says "it's all advertising" I'd say "it's all TV" when it comes to these new ways of delivering video.  Maybe we should say "it's all Video".  Either way, it's part of a trend as illustrated below in Twenty Years of TV Innovation.

What Social Media Taught Me on Super Bowl Sunday

My last post led to some enlightening discussions on Twitter and LinkedIn about the so-called Death of TV.  One insight was that when many people say "Death of TV" they actually mean "Death of Cable".  Much of the press on this subject talks about the cord cutters, and who can blame them?  Cable TV's delivery model forces you to buy up to 200 channels when most people watch no more than 17.

The Future of TV is Personalization

Which is a good reason to cheer for SlingTV, HBO Go, Google Chromecast and the other services starting to become available along with Hulu, Amazon Prime and Netflix.  All of these allow audiences to choose exactly what they want, which is why we said the other day that the future of TV is Personalization.  There's one day a year when 114.5 million people all watch one event, but during the rest of the year they all watch various programs that interest or entertain them.

It's all TV.  As the chart below illustrates, technology is meeting the demand for new ways to see what we want, when we want it.  TV's not dead.  It's innovating, growing and continuing to be a part of our lives.

The State of TV Advertising on the Eve of the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl has always symbolized the power of TV advertising.  Is that power waning?

Many business journalists seem to think the Super Bowl is the last bastion of TV advertising.  Just this morning as I was writing this post, The Economist daily news digest arrived, calling the Super Bowl "something increasingly rare in television: a programme that people watch live and in large numbers."

Surprise! Most TV Viewing is Still Done on a TV

Now let me explain
"Programmatic" to you

Actually, Live TV viewing is holding steady at about 4-1/2 hours per day.  Yes, 66.8% of Broadband Users Under 35 watch TV on a combination of these devices, but for all age groups most TV viewing is still done on a TV.  

This will shock Upper West Siders who binge-watch Orange Is The New Black on Netflix.  But regular people are watching live sports, NCIS, Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, Judge Judy and Big Bang Theory.  Bazinga!  

But Fragmentation Will Continue

TV was never dying; it was just following audiences to new platforms.  Cable supplanted Broadcast and new devices emerged like DVRs, OTT, Online and Mobile.  There will always be big audiences, but they will continue fragmenting.  In Ye Olde Marketing buying and selling TV was relatively straightforward and audience delivery was measured by Nielsen.  But now audiences are fragmented and sometimes not even measured.  Only Netflix knows how big the audience for Orange or House of Cards really is.  (A Los Angeles Times reporter tried thinking it through.)

The Super Bowl doesn't have this problem.  The marquee advertising will air during NBC's broadcast, and people will see it on TVs, tablets and other places.  The audiences will be big enough that few advertisers will worry about under-delivery against their $4.5 million (unless they're spending that money in the 4th quarter of a one-sided blowout).

The Revolution May Not Be Televised, but TV Will Be Personalized

But even in a big event that almost everyone watches or knows about, we see the future of TV:  Personalization.  For the Super Bowl it takes the form of second- and third-screen programming, i.e. game analysis, ad analysis and social media traffic.  Little of this is driven from broadcaster to audience; it's more of a conversation where both participate.  The famous Oreo dunk-in-the-dark tweet generated very small response:  15,000 Retweets and 20,000 Likes.  (In fact they probably generated more blog posts than that, but I digress.)  But it's OK because they learned how be part of people's conversations.  

In the same way, Oreo's latest stunt -- yes, it's a stunt -- using programmatic methods to buy a :15 in the Erie (Pennsylvania) DMA is a harbinger of things to come.  "Programmatic" is one of those words that's taken on too many meanings, but it's generally associated with media buying, just like the online ad world from which it came.  Its real value will be as a pathway to addressable TV, a way for audiences to customize the programs they see -- and advertisers to customize the messages that make them possible.

Enjoy the game -- and the ads -- and know that you'll always have plenty of company watching that first screen.  Keep one eye on those other screens, too, because they're a window to the future.

The Changing Role of TV

50 years ago this week, FCC Chairman Newton Minow called TV a “vast wasteland”.

Today, we can argue if TV is a wasteland but there’s no question it’s a vast – and shifting – territory.

The Death of TV has been Greatly Exaggerated

It’s been fashionable in recent years to say that TV, and in particular the 30-second commercial, is dead. Yet people watch a lot of it, which means advertisers still pay for it and producers keep filling it up with content. Supposedly Digital was putting an end to this cycle but so far the billions of hours of video content available online look more like a wasteland than the five hundred channels of TV available to many households. (Attention, digerati, please keep reading before you flame me in the comments section.)

TV Renaissance

In fact the demand for TV content is stronger than ever because TV isn’t just an appliance in your living room anymore. You can watch TV content on any number of devices, and TV advertising in the form of things like pre-roll video and DOOH displays. Jerry Seinfeld, who just launched a new website, observed: "Why would I talk to a TV executive at this point, and ask them what they think? If I have this idea for a TV show, I can just put it up on the Internet." On top of all this, let’s not forget that traditional TV sets offer not only hundreds of channels but the ability to watch programs anytime via the use of DVRs.

Expansion of TV complicates planning, measurement

Regular readers know about the Gigantic Venn Diagram, which is the collection of all available marketing channels across Advertising, Retail and Digital. TV is almost a Gigantic Venn Diagram unto itself, which means it’s impossible to have a TV media plan considering only TV. The confounding thing is that viewership is also a Gigantic Venn Diagram because people are using more than one media at a given time. During the Super Bowl all my Twitter feeds were moving fast with commentary about the game and its commercials. (Mrs. Ad Majorem watches Dancing With The Stars on two screens at once.)

Supply and Demand

Part of the “TV is dead” narrative has been resentment over continually rising prices for TV advertising. In the U.S., two years of recession are now followed by double-digit price increases. We expect the same in Asia and Latin America. “How can this be,” people ask, “when viewership is down and marketers have so many other options?” Three reasons. One, viewership isn’t down – in fact it’s expanding. Two, TV still offers a familiar ratings system – advertisers understand what they’re buying. Three, many of the biggest marketers still depend heavily on high awareness and TV is actually the most cost-efficient way to reach large audiences.

TV is not King

TV is not king; more like a ceremonial monarch with a big bank account, a lot of influence, and an unclear future. While TV is strong culturally and economically, digital media continue to rise in relevance. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that digital ad rates are also up in double-digits. Social Media will force the development of interactive TV. Mobile threatens TV in another important way, taking away part of TV’s broadcast spectrum.

What should you do?

Keep experimenting. Stay abreast of the changes. Continue to take a true channel-neutral approach and use TV in a way that will achieve your own business goals. As we said in a previous post, “How TV fits into IMC”, TV should never be the default position, but neither should it be eschewed. Don’t let labels hold you back. If you shift TV dollars to pre-roll, you can plausibly say you’re “going digital” and that you’re looking at TV expansively.

comScore makes another move into TV territory

Last month we posted about comScore acquiring ARS, the iconic TV copy test company.

Last week comScore hired former Arbitron exec Joan FitzGerald as VP-television sales and business development. That's not about testing TV creative, it's about who watches what on TV.

You can also read this article from AdAge.com.

They're remaking our old Super Bowl commercial

A few weeks ago we told you the behind-the-scenes story of how a legal problem almost killed the Michael Jordan-Larry Bird "Showdown" TV commercial.

Today comes a report from NYSportsJournalism.com that McDonald's is remaking the spot, this time with LeBron James and Dwight Howard.

17 years later, the spot is likely to have a new ending with an appearance by Bird.

Carla Michelotti is still general counsel at ad agency Leo Burnett, which is also handling the remake, so I doubt they'll fail to get the right building use clearances this time.

If this report is true, I'm looking forward to seeing the new version.

The world is spinning out of control...

This blog embraces the changes and challenges of modern marketing, which are legion. Here are two quick ones from the past 24 hours of marketing news.

DVR time-shifting. This article on AdAge.com reports a new study on which shows are the most "time-shifted", thanks to DVRs ("TiVo" to some of us). The study from Horizon Media counted eleven shows that are regularly watched up to seven days after they air.

Radio ratings. This morning's NYTimes.com reports that Nielsen's new Portable People Meters bring new accuracy to radio ratings. The author seems very interested in the findings that adult men listen to Celine Dion and that classical radio fans are a bit hypocritical.

These aren't just changes in technology, they are changes in how we measure the effectiveness of what we do.