Digital planners must learn to love TV

I am talking here about TV as an advertising medium and its ability to drive consumer decisions to purchase. We all know that impulse buys are made on emotion; considered buys are made by analysing the facts as best you can. This decision process is sometimes called the Head and Gut conflict and as advertisers our job in most cases, to get the Gut to win. The lingering problem with the web is its inability to create emotion and therefore affect the gut, primarily put down to the banners inability to tell a good story. In contrast, a good 30sec TV spot, when executed correctly can persuade you immediately that if you buy the product, your life will be filled with smiles and sunshine and if you don’t more fool you. What banner has honestly ever done that to you?

So why don’t 30sec spots work on the web?

The web is normally a private event, so at best TV ads work as a direct response mechanism, not as an emotive branding tool. However not helping the web are practical issues like the screen being too small to deliver a story and webpage’s been messy and noisy.

But even when the laptop is pluged into a TV and it essentially becomes Web-TV another issue emerges. A human trait overlooked by many online planners is the fact that people are gregarius and like to watch or share TV viewing in groups and this generates it own fuzzy emotive feelings. But this trait also has restrictions. For example I watched an episode of Lost recently with my wife, on a laptop connected to the TV. Every seven minutes aprox a 15sec ad for Mocono coffee popped up. Toward the end of each ad a big message appered that said 'click her for more information'. For professional interest alone I wanted to click, but what do you think are the chances of that happening?

This is an important point as group viewing prevents individuals within that watching group from moving from the main event, making direct response ads difficult. TV viewing is about compromise, not clicking away when you want to find out more information on a product. Yes there is the 'Call us now' type ads but they are the exception and restricted to small numbers on day-time. TV has understood group watching this since its inception and while we were all going down the data driven route, TV has morphed into an uber-entertainment channel. Some have even claimed we are in a golden age, and when you look at the quality of shows like Lost, CSI, Dexter, Heroes, V, Glee you certainly get the impression quality is going up. As a result when it comes to mobilising a mass audience you simply can’t beat TV. 106M Americans watched the Super Bowl, mostly together as a festive event with friends, family, popcorn, drinks, laughter and tears. More that YouTubes full monthly traffic that month. A flash in the pan to a degree but family shows like American Idol got up to 28M viewers a week, over 15M watched Britain Got Talent some weeks, and people got deeply engaged in group watching for hours not minutes. So TV not only has the power to generate emotional responses, but can do this with millions at a time.  

So will the union of web and TV technologies even work then? 

The biggest problem web TV will face is getting good content providers on its side and then there is the marketing task to consumers, convincing them they want a hybrid product that is both TV and browser. Those obstacles aside, I am assuming consumers at least for the short term will use their web-TV the same way they use their  existing TV and their exist web, i.e. seperately. Therefore as a single advertising media the 'head-and-gut model' will still be in conflict.

I may be wrong, its not unknown, but to illustrate my position try to imagine a car sales man with customer, both leaning into a new car interior, both smelling the new upholstery, him painting the picture of the beautiful life that can be had with this new purchase, then he closes, they agree on cost, the firm handshake, the handing over of keys with a tear in eye. The consumers Head never had a chance in that scenario. Now have that same car sales man bring that same customer to the close, then just before agreement, he/she is sent into a room full of facts about the car, fuel consumption, wheel base, comparative competitive analysis, peer reviews and all the alternatives cars you can buy at that same price. The Gut is battered down and head removes emotion, takes command and develops an informed conclusion. This illustrates the inherent conflict in combining TV and web at least when it comes to selling brand.

Not to sound like a broken record, but TV addresses the gut; the web simply tries to back up this emotional response even though it may not actually aid the sale. I would go further to say that the webs role is not to persuade in fact but more to not blow the story and waste the good work that TV has done to get the consumer to this point.

Regardless of all the above, last week technology convergence has happened. Google, Sony, Logitech, and Intel have launched a new "Smart TV". This system involves an appliance that is both a PC and a TV. It would look exactly like a big-screen TV, but the insides would also feature an Internet-connected computer. Intel CEO Paul Otellini told the Financial Times that "The revolution we’re about to go through is the biggest single change in television since it went colour." Have a look however at the CNN Money video below, he seems to say that the reason it will work this time, is that the other attempts haven’t worked. Not sure what that means, however the technology solution is solved, and consumers are sure to find this product useful, the big issue may be how it affects the sales of any products advertised on the media. The onus may fall on advertisers to find a way to make it work as, smart TV is not going away. This will have an impact on media strategy and also designers (who will have to look at Smart TV compatible sites).

Smart TV is a little in the future however and understanding the role of TV as it stands now is the immediate task. Digital planners will fast need to both understand the value of TV in selling emotion and the place of technology in supporting that emotion. They also need to devise plans on how to quickly funnel customers through to sale while keeping an emotional drum beat. Finally they need to be aware of the influence of shared group watching and the restrictions this has on direct response. Planning may then become less about media integration and or awareness and more about actual consumer decision processes and marketing science.

But overall digital planners need to understand that in a world of fragmenting audiences, especially online, TV remains the only real global mass medium. It has already survived and infact thrived in the internet age. It has managed to leverage internet technologies where other media like Press have been weakened. If TV can combine scale with specificity, become more responsive to its audience and learn to aim adverts more precisely, it will continue to be the dominant media for years to come. Clever use of digital technologies will provide the back up, but technology must be prepared to share the stage as a supporting actor only.