Television is a safe bet. It has been around for one-half century. It is proven,modeled (with reach and frequency curves),and provides immediate high exposure. Oh yeah,and no one gets fire for recommending television.
Some clients and agency people have the luxury of wrapping a multi-million dollar,television-campaign,security blanket around their careers. It works —no one gets fired for recommending a television campaign. Sure,the product may not sell,but that must be the fault of the product designer or the price point;maybe even logistics. It sure as heck was not the ad guy —he recommended television.
About four years ago I worked on the Pontiac G5 launch. The Pontiac Client had a flair for the dramatic (he was behind the Oprah G6 launch,where all audience members received a new car). For the G5 launch he declared it would be the “first all digital launch”. A bold move considering most automotive marketers just dabbled in digital. Sure they may put a million or two in digital,but the bulk of the money went into television. But,the G5 launch would be different. It would be all digital. It would live or die on the Internet.
Did it work? Doesn’t matter. The point of the story is it takes a bold move to not use television,especially if you have tens of millions of dollars in your media coffers. I am sure many people in the business have a G5 launch story. And there are plenty of other clients who thought about an “all digital launch”,but the clients and/or agency people got cold feet and added television to the campaign.
Television is an easy sell.
The reality is with television the media gods plug numbers into their reach and frequency models and can guesstimate how much impact the campaign will create. And just maybe the agency has a data wizard that can interpolate how the reach and frequency will relate to different funnel measures:awareness,familiarity,favorable opinion,consideration,intent,and purchase. Seems scientific. Seems plausible. Seems like it will work (insert visual two agency people doing a high-five slap). Seems like we are missing something —oh yeah,the idea.
For those who don’t know,I began my career (eons ago) in media research,and I will tell you media models do work —sometimes. The obvious problem is the model treats ads like they’re widgets —like there interchangeable. The model is about efficiency,not effectiveness. The reach and frequency model is illogical —it is illogical because the creative will have no discernible difference in the campaign results. The model may misjudge the impact of the campaign. If the creative is lame, you will have no impact regardless of what the model spits out,and conversely if the creative is superior you may be wasting money,becuase you already persuasively made your point in the first couple of exposures.
You can’t model the subjective
This is an interesting debate,because the models may hold us back. Subjectivity in creative,in ideas,and in different channels is difficult to measure. As we increase efforts in lesser known areas like digital,social,and mobile,the comfort level of many decision makers decrease. Many people think these channels make for nice tactics,but they wouldn’t bet their entire product launch on them. The prefer the television security blanket.
This debate needs to go to a higher plateau,because it isn’t about the tactics or picking a channel. Unfortunately many people in advertising begin with tactical elements like a Super Bowl commercial,facebook page,or mobile QR Codes. An all TV or all digital launch makes very little sense,because like the media model,picking on channel is not an idea,nor does it account for a bigger idea.
The true gurus see advertising through ideas. Ideas that are impactful. Ideas that can effect people with one exposure. However,ideas are risky. Risk mitigation will tell you to test an idea before you invest —before you launch. So we test. The problem is we often test our ideas through television or some video format. This testing method may be fine for television or other intrusive media ,but it does not work well for interactive campaigns. Sure,a marketer could just create the site and test it,but creating a $500,000 to $1 million web site could be a waste of money,or worse result in consumer backlash.
I guess this is where the boldness needs to happen. The willingness to take risks when we can’t model our future. We shouldn’t be careless in taking risks —we should be educated. Ideas should be generated from consumer insights,brand insights,and channel insights. Insights rooted in data —not just opinion. These ideas will transcend any one channel. They will live in the cross section of a brand truth and a consumer insight,and will be executed through channels that maximize the impact of the idea. If the premise of launching a product without a media model,don’t fret —you can always wrap yourself in a television security blanket.
Nice! Thanks for sharing,I hadn’t seen it!