TV Ads' New Digital Role - by Shiv Singh - Excerpt from Harvard Business Review

11:45 AM Thursday November 10, 2011

"Television advertising has undergone significant changes in the last 30 years. However, it is arguably on the verge of its greatest changes ever. From where I sit as the Global Head of Digital at PepsiCo Beverages, charged with navigating our brand's foray into the digital world, I see three big changes:

--The value we put on an advertisement will change as we seek to account for engagement metrics in the pricing.

--The narrative arch will change as we think of the advertisement as a trailer versus the whole story.

--Location-aware technologies will force a greater degree of engagement on a format that had historically been passive, impersonal and certainly without any extensions.

When you look at the statistics, the reasons are obvious. According to a recent study, 60% of television viewers also look at their mobile phones while watching TV shows. 33% have their laptops open in front of them and most interestingly, iPad owners spend the most time in front of the TV with their tablet than any other activity. It makes sense for TV advertisements to be thought of as an element in a broader narrative arch for the brand - a narrative arch that allows the brand to tell a more complete and a more interactive story. But what are the implications for marketers today? I see six key changes.

1. In the future, no television advertisement will be just self-contained narratives designed to entertain, inform, educate or remind consumers about products. Their role isn't going to be about building brand recall, favorability and awareness in that moment alone. They will be trailers into deeper branded digital experiences. When TV ads become teasers for digital experiences, the ROI on the investment will improve significantly as the digital experience will stretch out the brand experiences beyond the 30 second clip. The ROI won't be measured by the impact that the TV ad has when it's aired but also by its residual influence on engagement in other mediums in the weeks that follow the airing. We saw a good example of this with the Pepsi Sound Off platform that was launched to fuel conversations around the X-Factor TV show...."

via blogs.hbr.org

read the full article here:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/the_new_role_of_television_adv.html

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales