50 shades of grey

TV planning approaches are too black and white. The truth is that every brand has to find its own shade of grey between ‘reach’ and ‘targeted’ to maximise the benefits of Total TV.

The debate around how brands use video has been divided into mass TV vs hypertargeting. It’s one or the other.  Black or white.

Right now, classic linear TV is in the ascendency. ‘WeTV’, the watercooler of mass fame and common viewing experiences, the stuff we watch together, is thriving on classic cultural moments like the 14m audience for the final of The Great British Bake Off.

MeTV, the stuff that appeals solely to me and is shaped by my interests when I watch on digital devices or via streamed services, is in the doldrums. The most recent evidence of its struggle is P&G’s recent announcement that it has scaled back its Facebook targeting in favour of mass reach. (Source: WSJ, “P&G to Scale Back Targeted Facebook Ads”)

The publicity that followed revelled in the fact that the world’s biggest advertiser tried data-fuelled hyper-targeting and failed. The only possible conclusion was that everyone else ought to do likewise.

However, the reality is that TV planning isn’t black and white and it hasn’t been for some time. TV now happens on multiple devices and most programmes are watched at time of broadcast, time shifted or on demand.

What’s needed is a Total TV approach that combines all three strands. Brands can no longer simply rely on linear TV, powerful as it is, particularly among younger audiences who are demonstrating the greatest degree of viewing fluidity between linear, streamed and on-demand consumption across multiple devices.

As marketing professionals we know that mass reach is important. Countless IPA Effectiveness Awards support the power of cultural traction for a great ad when supported by a media strategy designed to reach everyone.

From Meerkats to Strutters in denim hot pants to prestige cars – countless brands have all built by targeting everyone. That’s because the non-buyers play a role in persuading the buyers to take action. As Jeremy Bullmore argued way back in 2001;‘If you want to be as famous as BMW it’s no use being known only by the tiny percentage of the population who can afford to buy your car today’.

Once brand communications cross into the playground, the message becomes totally unmissable. With the best ads, wastage can be a powerful thing.

But WeTV is not simply synonymous with linear TV, catch up and on demand viewing can be part of the incremental story of building fame.

Take a look at a show like Game of Thrones, the must-watch drama shown on Sky. Live audiences are 1.8m, catch up audiences via PVR are 700,000. But the overall audience after a month is 5m. On-demand viewing has delivered 50% of the total audience, creating an incremental opportunity that was previously unavailable and should now be part of every planners’ armoury.

Alongside this incremental WeTV opportunity, there is also the classic, programmatic-driven targeted MeTV. Data now allows us to target groups that were not possible to isolate and identify before and to build new types of campaign programmes.

Indeed, that it what P&G continues to do. The company has affirmed that it will still be using targeting for its point of market entry (POME) programme. That means reaching mums-to be with Pampers sampling. Or sending free razors for boys on their 18^th birthdays. 

MeTV opens up huge opportunities for hyper-relevance to drive penetration among new buyers, using data to identify the moment of need.

We have finance clients using sophisticated data signals to identify and overcommit to segments more likely to switch as part of an ongoing campaign build out from an understanding of consumers’ current account and/or mortgage situation.

The digital footprints we create ahead of major life changes such as moving house, enable brands to identify POME opportunities that are ideal for relevance-based targeting in categories from retail to financials.

Brands and planners need to move away from thinking about the choice between WeTV and MeTV, the real challenge is to use the right mix of both.

New platforms are creating a wealth of new WeTV opportunities while data and technology allows us to find identifiable groups that can be effectively targeted via MeTV.

Together they create a new vision for Total TV that represents a massive change. TV’s no longer black and white. You just have to identify the right shade of grey for your brand.

This piece was written for The Marketing Society by Videology. Find out more from them here.