For any advertisers looking to grow their brand on TV, ITV is understood to be a fantastic driver of traffic due to their huge TV ratings. Their much-loved programming selection and high channel placement (behind only the BBC) play big parts in this.
While most will know of their breakfast programmings such as Good Morning Britain and Lorraine, you might not be aware that morning hours (~7am-9:30am) are accessible separately from daytime ITV (~9:30am-5:30pm). This is notable for two key reasons: relative pricing and audience indexing. Knowing how and when to effectively buy the ITV Breakfast segment can help give you the advantage in reaching your audience cost-effectively.
ITV Breakfast vs. ITV Daytime
ITV, like all TV stations, is primarily accessed on a cost per thousand (CPT) basis, meaning the value of the media is based directly on how many people view your adverts. CPTs generally vary over time based on total advertiser spends and can be considered seasonal. For ITV Daytime, the CPT is most expensive when demand for media space is highest, such as in Q4 when Black Friday and Christmas are on the agenda.
ITV Breakfast, however, operates on a fixed price across the year. This creates an immediate pricing disparity within the same station, between morning hours and daytime hours. Breakfast generally operates more cost-efficiently between September and December especially, offering a strong opportunity for brands looking to reach ITV non-peak audiences in Q4:
Is ITV Breakfast effective?
ITV Breakfast can be considered a companion or alternative to ITV, with mostly similar audience indexes. The below table shows indices for each of ‘All TV’, ‘ITV Daytime’, and ‘ITV Breakfast’ for several key audiences. A clear uplift for women and older audiences can be seen for both ITV options, although social grade (ABC1 vs. C2DE) is relatively even across all three.
ITV Breakfast shows a female index of 136, compared to ITV’s 130 and all TV’s 110. ITV Breakfast shows an index of 103 for adults aged 35 to 54, considerably higher than ITV (which is best for over 55s) or all TV.
Combined, we can see that ITV Breakfast shows a fantastic audience share for women aged 35 to 54 with an overall index of 133.
Additionally, despite the overall TV trends, ITV Breakfast average monthly impacts (views) have increased by 23% between January 2014 and July 2016 and January 2018 and July 2020. This positive uplift of monthly impacts helps further solidify ITV Breakfast’s ability to help deliver your campaign at scale.
All Response Media viewpoint
ITV Breakfast is often overlooked as an option for TV campaigns, even when already running on daytime ITV. These stations offer a strong companion or alternative to ITV daytime with high impact morning spots.
The key opportunities are:
1) Comparatively low pricing vs ITV day time during Q4 months
2) One-stop national ITV Buy (ITV is currently sold separately on a regional basis)
3) Much stronger female 35-54 indexing than ITV overall
If your brand is targeting a female 35-54 audience and you have not yet tried ITV Breakfast, we encourage allocating some TV budget for a test in Q4! If this is of interest to you or your brands, please contact your ARM media buying team who will be able to answer any of your questions
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