Realistic Advertising With IKEA

IKEA’s commercials have gotten a lot of industry buzz for their portrayal of the “honest” side of life. Rather than portraying perfect families in their shiny homes, the “Where Life Happens” campaign features relatable situations, such as adoption or divorce.

In the latest IKEA Sweden spot, a mother comes home to an apartment full of messy teenagers. She is overwhelmed and takes refuge on the apartment’s balcony. It is only after a heartwarming turn of events that IKEA products, with prices, are presented.

You can watch the spot here.

So why do these ads garner so much attention from industry insiders and consumers alike?

Everything, from the 4:3 aspect ratio to the simple yet moving music, works to build a consistent voice that carries from one ad to the next. As Matt Tanter, CSO of Grey London, says, “they have found a voice that uses a magical realism to create beautiful, funny, moving stories.”

The touch of reality and consistent voice help IKEA’s ads stand out amongst the clutter. This strategy can be utilized by other brands to increase likeability and brand recall.

Gen Z and the Future of Television Advertising

In an effort to understand the future of television advertising, Tremor Video and Hulu partnered on a study to research the viewing habits of Generation Z compared to Millennials and Gen X. Gen Z is not only watching less television than their forebears but how they choose to access shows and movies is unique.

Even the language differentiates generations. The vast majority of Gen X say “watching TV” means access through cable or satellite whereas the majority of Millennials and Gen Z consider watching by an online source to qualify.

The reliance on streaming videos allows Gen Z to watch more at one time than through traditional cable or satellite. As reported in “How Gen Z Connects to TV: Exploring the Generational Divide in the Future of TV”, 60% of Gen Z watch multiple episodes in one sitting compared to just 44% of Gen X.

In an interesting twist, Gen Z is actually more receptive to advertisements and are the most likely to share video ads through social media. However, advertisers should be aware that Gen Z expects ads to be relevant to what they are viewing.

With 48% of Gen Z saying they watch less television than their parents, it would be wise to target ads thoughtfully. By advertising across platforms (48% of Gen Z say they browse social media while watching TV) and reducing ad loads, advertisers can reach Gen Z when it most counts.

Digital Tops TV Despite Some Specific Struggles

Ad Age reports that US digital advertising sales surpassed television ad sales for the first time in 2016. Digital sales pulled in $70 billion compared to $67 billion on the more traditional television medium.

Magna, a strategic media forecasting company, reports that television saw a 4.7% increase in 2016 due to the Olympics and the presidential election. However, that growth is expected to settle back into the 3.7% range for 2017. Meanwhile, digital sales are projected to increase 14% in 2017. Magna believes that by the end of 2017 digital advertising sales will pass television in not only the United States, but globally.

With this, digital vendors are under the microscope more than ever before. Big brands like JP Morgan Chase are pulling the plug on their programmatic to avoid their ads being placed on unwanted sites.

Other large companies have had it with video hub, YouTube, as they are unhappy with the videos their ads are paired with. While advertisers understand that ads are placed with algorithms, formulas, and data, users are not quite as informed. Many users believe that the ad aligned with the video they are viewing is purposefully done.

YouTube isn’t taking a front row seat to their slow destruction though. The Google owned company is taking steps to allow advertisers to proactively avoid undesired content. Previously, YouTube had two preventative options to avoid, “sensitive social issues” and “tragedy and conflicts”. Now, YouTube has rolled out options to stay away from content that is, “sexually suggestive”, “sensational and shocking” and “profanity and rough language”.

While this may help advertisers, YouTube seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place as they’re receiving push back from content creators. YouTube states in a blog post that, “There’s a difference between the free expression that lives on YouTube and the content that brands have told us they want to advertise against”. With this setback, YouTube could potentially lose $750 million this year.

Even with upset brands and algorithm tweaks, digital advertising has a bright future as king of the castle. 

Unexpected DVR Trends

I remember when my family first got a DVR; I was a young teenager with two very frugal parents. However, when the cable company offered a free trial, my dad bit the lure and after a few months we were hooked.

Even as a kid, I remember hearing the buzz about how DVR would ruin the television industry and take away from the advertisers. Surprisingly enough, data from Nielsen and the Video Advertising Bureau report a different story.

During the first quarter of 2016, time-shifted programming (recording television and watching it at something other than the original air time) has dropped 12% among viewers 18 and older.

For years, estimates had been that viewership would be roughly 50/50 between time-shifted programming and live programming. However, data from first quarter 2016 shows that 77% of viewing is done live while only 23% comes from DVR viewing.

Other demographics have seen a decline in DVR viewing as well. Those aged 50-64 have dropped 6% while people 65+ have declined 7%.

So, why aren’t people watching as much prerecorded television shows as they used to? After all, it does give you the power to fast-forward through all those commercials. Perhaps the industry is simply shifting. One theory is that the rise of digital media is to blame.

In my mind, this is great for advertisers. Most digital streaming video has opportunity for advertisements without the ability to fast-forward.

Fear not! Viewers are still watching television and they’re still watching their DVRs. Advertisers can still reach their audience during shows; it just might be through their laptop or smartphone screen rather than on “the tube”. 

Managing Makegoods and Broadcast Buys This Political Season

What’s worse than seeing political ads nonstop? If your answer is something other than, “having your ads pre-empted due to political ads nonstop” then it’s almost guaranteed that you don’t work in the media industry.

Borrell Associates Inc. has estimated that during the 2016 election season 5.8 billion dollars will be spent on broadcast television. And yes, you did read that right, that’s billion with a “b”. To top that, broadcast television advertising makes up roughly half of the total advertising spend for political this year.

So how do we prevent these pre-empt spots? Evan Brown points out some strategies in his article, “Working Around the 2016 Political Advertising Season”. Here are a few:

1.      Buy early! Typically stations use a “last-in-first-out” method, so the sooner, the better on those broadcast buys.

2.      Avoid buying five spots per week for a standard program like morning or late news. This gives the station absolutely no flexibility in your placements.

3.      See if 15 or 10 second spots are less likely to get bumped. Political ads are commonly 30 seconds in length.

4.      Accept the fact that the spot you paid $100 for last buy will now be double and adjust accordingly.

5.      Keep on top of your makegoods. Despite receiving them all day, every day, it’s important to respond rapidly to have the best chance to re-placed spots.

Hopefully these tactics can be of assistance in reducing the amount of makegoods into a more manageable task. As The Little Engine that Could would say, “I think I can, I think I can”, so stand strong broadcast television media buyers, there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Advertisements on the Big Screen Verses the Small Screen

No one reading this blog would be surprised if I stated that people watch television shows on multiple devices. A statement that might intrigue you is that advertisements do not settle in with consumers in the same way across all devices.

Nielsen commissioned a study to be carried out by Hub Entertainment Research to measure how people watched the same five shows and their ability to recall advertisements. Viewers watched the shows: Bones, Family Guy, The Big Bang Theory, Survivor, and Family Feud across televisions, tablets, smartphones, and computers.

After the shows had been viewed, Hub Entertainment Research conducted 15-minute interviews and determined that those watching on televisions had the highest ad-recall percentage at 62, followed by tablets (47%), smartphones (46%) and computers (45%).

Hub also measured “attentiveness” using a scale of 1-10 where 29% of television viewers ranked advertisements in the 8-10 range.

Conclusions were drawn that the study had two primary factors: the size of the viewing screen and the role of multitasking when watching the shows. A mere 7-11% of multitasking was related to the brands featured in ads shown.

Peter Fondulas from Hub Entertainment Research puts it this way, “The more likely culprit for lower ad engagement on smaller screens is an ad delivery approach that doesn’t align well with the expectations, and viewing situations, of consumers watching on mobile devices.”

Simply put, viewers expect to see advertisements on television, that’s all we’ve ever known. Yet, when it comes to viewing video on alternative devices, viewers are less accommodating and accepting of these interruptions.

Where and When to Reach Your Customers

We all know that advertising is a way to reach customers and hopefully impact their opinions, actions, and decisions in a positive way. But what is the best way to impact customers before they make a purchase decision? Starcom Mediavest Group dove deep into researching customer activity prior to purchases to discover just that.

Through SMG’s research, they found that customers are highly impacted at all stages of the decision making process through audio and out of home.

From the above graph, you can see the correlation between purchase activity and media usage. Interestingly, each category affects consumers the most at the “consider” and “decide” levels except for television and digital video which highly affect consumers at the purchase point.

Taking a deeper look into the industry’s hot-topic generation, the Millennials (ages 18-34), SMG found that trends tend to be relatively similar. By analyzing the graph below, we can see that Millennials tend to react in a similar way when compared to non-millennial adults.

Surprisingly, television and digital video are the only media outlets where Millennials correlate at a higher level than adults 18+.  Search and social, while being incredibly popular with Millennials, have a correlation that fails to outperform that of the adult group.

For advertisers looking to influence their target audience in a way that will cause them to consider, decide, and purchase a product or service, this information is incredibly relevant and might require some re-strategizing to reach consumers in the most effective manner.

Online Video Catches Up with Television

According to a new report from Millward Brown, consumers are spending just as much time watching online video as they are watching television.

This might not come as a surprise to many advertisers, as we have seen growth in online video streaming, however, this shifts how advertisers can best reach their target audience.

Millward Brown conducted a global study of over 13,500 multiscreen viewers (people with a TV and either a smartphone or tablet) in 42 different countries. The study showed that people between the ages of 16 and 45 watch 204 minutes of video a day. 

Those 204 minutes are split equally between television viewing and online viewing.

This study has shown that not only younger generations utilize online video, but also Generation X-ers.

Consequently, viewers tend to find online advertisements irritating. Only 19 percent of online viewers responded in favor of online ads during their videos while 27 percent of viewers feel positively about television ads.

Interestingly enough, 41 percent of people who were included in the study responded favorably to ads tailored to their interest. With that being said, only 25 percent of respondents like ads that had tracked their browsing history and promoted something from a website they had previously visited.

With this information, advertisers can start pushing their video ads onto online platforms. The most important measure of this transition will be the content and context in which the advertisements are displayed to make sure it is received with a positive connotation.

Second-Screen Transforms TV Experience

Think about the last time you watched television. According to a Nielsen study, there’s a good chance you weren’t just watching one screen. Nielsen has discovered that, “eighty-four percent of smartphone and tablet owners say they use their devices as second-screens while watching TV at the same time.”

This is a huge statistic for advertisers. This second-screen trend opens up a whole new world of advertising possibilities. It will come as no shock if commercials start to direct viewers directly to their tablet to purchase or research their product.

Below, is a graph that Nielsen created that shows what people are using their second-screen for. The only category in which the usage of smartphones is greater than the usage of tablets is when it comes to email/texting friends about what they’re seeing on television. This should be looked at very closely by advertisers to realize that tablet users are more likely to dig deeper into a product or service they see on television than smartphone users.

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/whats-empowering-the-new-digital-consumer.html

Nielsen’s report also found a rise in “social TV” where roughly one million Americans turn to Twitter to discuss television every day. This plays a huge role in how advertisers get their message out to today’s audiences.

With this knowledge, companies can create their commercials specifically for those utilizing a tablet as a second-screen. These commercials can direct viewers directly to their product or service and receive immediate action by consumers. Advertisers must keep up with the growing digital world and prepare for all of the second-screen viewers.