Television marketing is such a Goliath, it’ll likely never go away. It’s also easily the industry where the most money is burned each year.
Some fast facts about TV markting:
- the average American still watches 4 hours of TV each day, but this includes shows that are streamed
- only 2/3 of people still subscribe to cable
- 78% of people have a subscription to multiple streaming service
Though cable TV ads are harder to target the right audience, have a low ROI compared to other forms of digital advertising, and seem generally irrelevant in the digital age, there is one type of tv ad that may still be worth it; but it will cost ya.
Remember I mentioned that renting a billboard in Times Square, for a year, will set you back a million or more?
A 60 second commercial aired during the Super Bowl costs $5.6 million.
Thanks to their cross-pollinating effect, the often viral and memorable commercials still pay for themselves.
Roughly 10% of all TV commercial-related shares on social media come from Super Bowl ads. So do about 8% of all views on YouTube that go to TV commercial videos.
If your commercial makes it to the blacklist (commercials the network decides can’t be shown on TV), the viral effect is usually even stronger, like the infamous Carl’s Junior ad that couldn’t be shown in the 2015 Superbowl.
What’s more, these commercials become online assets, generating millions of YouTube views over time.
Sadly, the hype of the Super Bowl commercials is probably more of a remnant from a success period that’s about to fade.
The $200 billion that companies still annually spend worldwide on TV commercials is hardly justifiable, as every 10th person in the United States has a Netflix account, with more to come.
TV, in the form as we know it, is going to die and will make way for the more custom-tailored experiences we are already getting used to.
So, if you do plan on doing offline digital marketing, I’d suggest that you spend your time and money focusing on a marketing platform or channel of the future.