In the drive for maximising the effectiveness of a TV campaign, there are a wide variety of opportunities to optimise your linear TV activity; second length, day of week, day part, station, programme to name just a few. At ARM, we lead the industry in terms of our proprietary technology that allows us to optimise TV at this level of granularity, and gain insight which allows us to grow our clients’ budgets and businesses efficiently.
Another element is of course cost. But performance TV buying doesn’t just have to equal ‘DRTV’; ie buying airtime at the cheapest Cost per Thousand impacts (CPTs). When expanding budgets effectively, each media needs to be segmented into different elements based on performance. Other forms of media may prove more efficient than the poorest performing elements of your TV plan, and there are other opportunities within TV other than just linear spot advertising.
Peak
Peak and daytime don’t have to be thought of in separate buying strategies. While peak TV will carry higher CPTs, that won’t necessarily equal a higher cost per key performance indicator (KPI). Some of the best performing daytime stations will deliver lower cost per KPI at peak than poorer performing elements of a daytime strategy.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship is not just for branding. Although a sponsorship message is not allowed to carry a strong CTA or sales messaging, it can still drive response and if bought at the right price this can deliver efficient results. Sponsorship is dealt on an offer/ negotiation model, meaning the opportunity to get deals which can deliver CPTs lower than linear TV. Sponsorship doesn’t have to be a long term commitment either; stations are often flexible on just sponsoring weeks, days or events. Using response data to identify an advertiser’s best performing stations/programmes, and flexible/creative buying gives sponsorship a real chance to deliver results.
DR.TV Online Video
The CPTs associated with online video can often put off advertisers from including it in their plans. However, when approaching planning by comparing performance vs. different elements of a TV schedule at the more granular level, online video can deliver a response that can help improve overall results, whilst also helping to increase reach potential.
Longform
While not right for everyone, longform (teleshopping) is a great potential opportunity for those selling physical goods directly, but can be utilised by any advertiser with a transactional product or service. Longform consists of a 30 minute pre-recorded ‘show’ that demonstrates the benefits of the product, with regular calls to action throughout the show to encourage the viewer to purchase. Other time lengths are available in this format.
Teleshopping is mostly aired between 1am-5am, on a wide range of stations including the likes of ITV’s digital stations, Comedy Central, Dave, Nickelodeon and many more. However, there are many teleshopping shows which are televised outside of these hours: there are also a number of dedicated ‘shopping’ channels reaching in-market audiences 24 hours a day with high levels of inventory. Although production of 30-minute shows requires a higher production investment than creating a 30” test, longform can be tested on comparatively low budgets.
All Response Media Viewpoint
Bringing all of this together, delivering the best performance requires having a holistic view of all media results, and always being open to testing different ways of reaching new people and delivering messaging to improve efficiency via the various methods and channels utilised.
