If the advertisers’ ‘machine –gun’ us with their messages by using TV, who exactly are they ‘hitting’ with this broadcast technique?
Remember, the term broadcasting comes from the sower’s action. The sower of seeds would walk through the tilled field throwing seed outwards from a bag of seed worn around the neck and hanging down below the hip. The seed would go whether it was thrown – a pretty random act really as much would fall on stony and infertile ground, much would be eaten by birds and rodents and some, some being the operative word, would put down root and grow.
Narrow casting is much more precise.
The media that enable an advertiser to target or ‘snipe’ their consumer are
- Internet
- Direct mail
- Ambient advertising
- Viral advertising
- Guerrilla advertising
Each is aimed at a single person.
Of course knowing your target audience is vital before you can begin to target them
“TV has always been a bit ‘hit and hope’.” Says Mark Parker, creative director.
“There was a marvellous ad some years ago which showed a couple engaged in something other that commercial watching and the headline was something like; ‘RESEARCH WILL TELL YOU THAT THEY ARE WATCHING YOUR COMMERCIAL’. Quite!”
So what will happen to the TV commercial?
It certainly won’t disappear overnight, that is for sure. Brand Mangers still see it as a banker for certain times and for certain audience.
In fact it probably won’t evaporate in the next few years but it is in decline.
There are always going to be specific audiences that a brand can target at a specific time.
Don’t forget Jean Luc Godard;
“Television does not make programmes. It creates audiences”.
But is it still true?
Perhaps - men between the ages of 16-60 and their car shows? Women and their soaps?
Children and their kids TV?
Well perhaps not. ITV (UK) has already tried to unload all its kids TV as it recognises it has very little brand interest in kids.
OFCOM reined them back but we know, don’t we, that they will be buying their programming in from overseas and that their in-house teams are already on their last legs.
Where will the advertiser go instead?
Have a look at ‘Subservient Chicken’. Burger King’s ‘old hat’ site which works virally. No longer does the advertiser have to go looking for the audience – the audience goes looking for it – it works via word of mouth – virally!
TV advertising may not yet be dead but it is in a critical condition.
