In early December, my editor asked me what the big story was in marketing. To be honest, I had to really scratch my head. Usually, there’s at least one campaign that blows everyone else out of the water. Historically this is a TV ad that is played over and over again and that gets discussed everywhere: in line at Starbucks, at the water cooler, and pops into dinner party conversations. I couldn’t think of anything special.
Reflecting on this year, I couldn’t think of one stand out TV ad. What did stand out for me were several amazing viral videos! The difference is these weren’t created as ads that got passed around on social media, these are videos that were created and intended for social media.
The perfect example of this phenomenon was timed to make the most of the holiday season – the recent West Jet video. And it was a huge hit!
This video popped up all over Twitter and FB and within hours I noticed a shift in the people sharing it. Very quickly, people in the US were sharing the video. Sure enough, Mashable had picked up the story and this video was well and truly viral. YouTube views are now over 34 million and the Mashable article has been shared over 1.59 million times.
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Why would advertisers create videos designed for social media instead of TV? There are some solid reasons.
Strike #1: PVR, downloading shows and the Internet
People no longer sit in front of the TV, completely engrossed in a TV show and commercials. With PVR and the ability to just bypass commercials… well, who watches commercials? Those who download shows often find versions with zero ads. Sure, some people go to the network website and are then forced to watch ads (I’m looking at you CBC Docs and the same GMC ad over and over and over again) but this is not capturing nearly as many eye balls as TV traditionally used to back when people had no options but to watch their favourite show at a set time. This impact of technology has been slowly impacting how advertising dollars are spent. Worse still, data is showing that people are giving up on TV altogether.
Strike #2: Media consumption has changed
More and more people get in front of the TV and are using a cell phone, tablet or laptop at the same time. Consumers are multitasking more than ever and that is certainly having an effect on how they absorb messaging. Why watch commercials when you can text your best friend or catch up on your FB? You might even be working while the TV is on. The change in media consumption has led to changes in how marketing campaigns are designed like in the case of the Anchorman II campaign.
Strike #3: Over-saturation of media
It’s pretty hard for a mere TV ad to stand out the same way it did 15 years ago when the entire medial landscape has changed so much. People are bombarded with advertising on their phones when they play games (Wordament to my chagrin), ads are over their FB and Twitter feeds, just surfing the web leads to bombardment of advertising. There is more advertising competition than ever before and across new, additional channels. Written in 2007, this NYT article is even more relevant now than then.
If people aren’t focusing on TV anymore, where are they focused? Online. Fabebook and Google are close to approaching the same reach as TV. This means you’ll hit as many people via these two channels as you would with TV. And it’s a heck of a lot cheaper. An ad is expensive to produce and then the air time has to be bought and paid for as well. That’s extremely expensive. Take it from someone who has managed the budget for producing TV ads as well as media buying, digital is a LOT cheaper.
Mark my words, TV ads will still be around but they will continue to lose impact and marketers will continue to shift money to the digital channels.
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