Thursday, March 10, 2011

TV Ads Empowered With Tags : Going Beyond Mass Media

The television advertising market is going to experience huge modifications within the next few years. Some of the main change will include:
The rise of video on demand: People need the
The rise of new hardwares: TV consumption will become more and more important on mobile and computers
The rise of conversion with Internet videos: As we see, Google TV will change the way we use television, by providing a better experience in program searching, but also with the possibility to seek through several different sources (TV, Youtube, Video on Demand websites and so on).

The TV advertising market has been suffering from the spring of Internet advertising. I found an interesting article about TF1, one of the leading media agency in France and n°1 TV channel, which is launching an innovation: In certain commercials, you will have 3 different tags available in order to go further with the brand:

  • Information about the products
  • Bonuses, which includes making off, or games
  • Coupons

TF1 conducted a survey where 77% of the respondents declared they would be to log on a specific website to get further information about a commercial they have just seen.





Those three features are available on TF1's website. Here are some thoughts about the concept:

  • It provides added value to the brand which wants to use the media. It can now become more interactive with the audience, which remains the weakness of the medium.
  • It will generate traffic on the website of TF1, where TF1 will be able to sell more ads... This looks like a virtuous circle right?
  • It will provide valuable metrics to brands. So far, television was the perfect mass market medium. But audiences are plumetting, due mainly to the use of the Internet. Now, television is empowered with new metrics, and it may help marketing managers to determine the return on investment they may get with TV ads. Moreover, coupons is becoming one of the hottest trend in marketing.
  • Now I kind of regret the lack of technology inspiration... Couldn't we just access those information through the TV, or through a mobile phone. Indeed, logging on the website remains a hurdle. I would not leave my seat while watching TV just to get bonuses of a great app. However, if it is available at my hand, either on my TV or on my phone (via a mobile tag to flash), I believe I would do.

    Television has never been a customer relationship management medium, because of the lack of interraction you may get. Of course, the brand equity you may built with the large exposition of TV will impact your customer relationship management value... But thanks to these new tools, TV would actually provide new ways to envision how to conceive TV commercials. I believe these new features will become very popular, and it may be adopted by some other channels.

What do you think about it?