Saturday, February 23, 2008

Marketers Say TV Is Dead, Long Live TV! | MediaPost


by Aaron Baar, Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 5:01 AM ET
THE BAD NEWS: MARKETERS BELIEVE the effectiveness of television advertising has declined over the past two years. The good news? They're more interested in trying new formats and other forms of video commercials.

According to the fourth biennial TV & Technology survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research, 62% of the marketers surveyed believe television has become less effective over the past two years. However, nearly half of them have begun to experiment with technologies that work with digital video recorders and on-demand programming. Moreover, 87% of advertisers believe branded entertainment will be a big part of TV advertising in the coming year.

The marketers' response is backed up by separate data from BIGResearch, revealing that traditional media's influence is declining when it comes to influencing purchasing decisions.

For example, in the survey of more than 15,000 people, broadcast television declined nearly 14% when it came to influencing electronics purchases as compared to the year-ago period. Cable television declined more than 14% over a year ago. Conversely, blogging and instant messaging grew 21.5% and 22% when it came to influencing electronics purchases. Similar gains and declines were found when it came to car and truck purchases.

"The traditional media is declining, and that's because people are self-directed," Gary Drenik, president of BIGresearch, tells Marketing Daily. "If they want information, they'll find it somewhere. They're not watching 'American Idol' to see what flat-screen TV they're going to buy."

However, most marketers believe they're ready for the changes. According to the ANA survey, more than half of them said that when DVR penetration reaches 50% of all TV households they plan to cut advertising by 12%. In a related measure, 87% of respondents said they will increase their Web advertising spending.

And according to the survey, most marketers believe their agencies have caught up with the rapidly changing marketplace. Twenty-eight percent felt their media agency is ill-equipped to address TV, down from 47% two years ago. However, 47% of the marketers said their creative agencies were ill-equipped to deal with changes, which is only a slight improvement over the 55% from two years ago.

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