Google, Facebook and Netflix invested 60% of their marketing budget on TV advertising in the UK in 2015. Facebook was one of 877 new advertisers last year and accounted for 2.3% of TV adspend. It became the UK’s biggest TV advertiser, according to UK commercial TV marketing body, Thinkbox, investing AU$21m (£10.8 million) in 2015.
Digital companies spent AU$974M (£500 million) on TV advertising in 2015, an increase of 14% on 2014. They are now the second biggest spenders on TV, according to Nielsen’s data. Overall spend on TV increased by 7.4% to AU$10.26bn (£5.27 billion). This was the largest year-on-year increase since the recession and the sixth consecutive year of growth.
Motor companies increased their year-on-year adspend by 18%, finance companies 17% and household FMCG by 14%. The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) also reported that the most viewed UK advertiser in 2015 was Procter & Gamble with 30.5 billion views, followed by Sky with 21.2 billion views. Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser had 20.3 billion views each.
Was it worth it? It would seem so. In November, GroupM published a Thinkbox study that measured advertising effectiveness in the UK by how many Facebook interactions it generated for brands. The study measured e-commerce, bricks and mortar and telephone responses to advertising, identifying additional consumer response directly attributable to media investment that occurred on top of the ongoing base level of response. TV advertising was shown to be responsible for 44% of Facebook interactions.
The study also found that TV creates the most short to medium term sales. Media accounts for 39% of sales on average in the short to medium term (within 3 months of a campaign finishing). 33% of these sales are driven by TV advertising – more than any other communication channel. Paid-for online search created 22%, online display 12%, affiliates 10%, print 8%, direct mail 8%, radio 3% and outdoor 1%.
TV advertising was also shown to generate 32% of media-driven sales via paid-for online search, 30% of media-driven sales via online display and 20% of media-driven sales via affiliate marketing. TV advertising was 40% more efficient at driving long term response per dollar than outdoor and print (the next most efficient). TV was 180% more efficient at generating long term response than online display – which was the least efficient.
Here is Facebook’s 2015 TV campaign, Friends:
…which provided J.Walter Thompson and Age UK with a carpe diem idea too good to miss.
