Television Advertising: Lights, Camera, Action!
Television advertising offers movement, color, sound and action – all at the same time. It’s exciting to think that everyone will see your product or service by advertising on television. But will everyone see the ad, just because you bought TV spots? Not necessarily. Is it important and relevant that everyone see the TV spots? Not necessarily.
Television advertising, like radio advertising, has specific audiences for each program presented. With cable advertising it could be a specific audience that watches the entire station. All sports channels generally have much higher percentages of men who watch than women. All female-oriented channels generally have a higher percentage of women watching than men. In today’s television programming, there are some very specific segments of the market who view very specific television programs or stations and the television advertising rep should be able to communicate those clearly.
Is your product sold to women ages 18-25? If so, the TV ad rep can tell you which programs these young women view, and during which times of the day, and what channels you should advertise on to reach this audience segment. Is your product sold designed for children, but parents will be buying, influenced by the child? There is plenty of programming for children who will probably be supervised by parents, so you can reach one group or both.
Television, like radio, monitors viewing habits and rates the percentage of the market viewing at any given time. Each percentage of the total market is called a rating point. The higher the ratings of a program, the higher the cost per spot will be to the advertiser. Spots can be purchased very inexpensively on television but let the buyer beware – if it doesn’t reach the right audience, what difference does it make how low priced the spots are sold to you? If you get a great deal on spots for products geared to women but the spots are placed on television stations or during programs that have a high male audience, is it really a good deal? The answer is simply “no.”
Television costs more to produce than radio. Using professional talent is more expensive to produce than using the owner of the business. Is it worth it? The answer is usually “yes,” because most of us aren’t actors or professional speakers or on-air talent. Is it worth appearing in your own commercials if it actually makes your business look worse? No, never. Too many times egos get involved, and while you might like seeing yourself on TV, will everyone else enjoy the experience as much as you, and more importantly, are you the best pitch person for broadcast, or would someone else (a professional actor) be better? Again, most of the time this is best left to professionals.
You can spend a lot of money on television advertising but if the ads aren’t effective in getting more customers or making more sales, is it really money well spent? Television advertising, like all forms of media, is only truly effective if it gets the desired response. Make decisions regarding television advertising carefully so it has the opportunity to work for your business.
