Making the most of your TV time-bands with breakfast

Traditionally, direct response TV (DRTV) ads air between the hours of 09:00 and 17:29 in “daytime” time-bands. However, many brands now also expand into “peak” (17:30-22:59) and “all-time” (06:00 – 29:59) as well as “breakfast” (06:00- 09:30) in order to expand their activity, reach their target audience and gain further acquisition. Breakfast is a daypart outside of these traditional daytime hours which brands should look to take advantage of and expand into first, due to the upscale audience delivered here and the potential low costs compared to peak airtime.

Audience

From an audience perspective, breakfast delivers an ABC1 adults index* comparable to that of pre-peak and early-peak, and higher than coffee and daytime. Breakfast reaches an upmarket audience, delivering messages to an audience with disposable income, typically before they go to work – beneficial for brands aiming for purchasing acquisition.

Breakfast also provides an opportunity to reach a younger audience (often referred to as the ‘harder to reach’ audience), with this being the highest indexing daypart for 18-34 adults on the Sky Media station mix;

Pricing

Peak and all-time are generally more expensive dayparts to buy airtime in, with cost per thousands (CPTs) typically as least twice as much as daytime depending on your target audience. This therefore means from a cost per acquisition (CPA) point of view, your response rates would have to increase in line with CPT in order to maintain efficiency. On the other hand, the breakfast daypart can often be negotiated and traded on a CPT the same as, or similar to, that of daytime, opening up your daytime time-bands earlier in the day to 06:00 rather than 09:00. This is of courses subject to saleshouse, station availability and negotiation.

All Response Media viewpoint

Because breakfast tends to be a busier time of day in most households we have seen the propensity to respond directly to an airing can sometimes be lower than daytime, however we have had successful results from airtime in the breakfast period across a number of clients, both from opening up time-bands on daytime airtime, as well as buying specifically into breakfast (for example buying airtime on ITV Breakfast).

When compared to peak on a CPT and therefore cost per acquisition basis, breakfast airtime can be an efficient response driver as an individual daypart, but can also aid response for airtime across the rest of the day – evidence suggests that adding this to the schedule can help the rest of your activity work better as a reminder to activate on earlier sentiment. Certain clients have seen c. +10% improvement in their overall Sky Media attributed cost per acquisition as a result of including this pre 9am airtime.

If your brand is currently running DRTV but only from 9am, we would recommend exploring the test options available. The impact of pre 9am airtime differs by client and brand therefore needs to be considered on an individual basis (for example if your TV creative drives response to a call centre that isn’t open until 9am, solutions would need to be considered).

Read more information on our TV services.