Tips & Tricks to 2010 Media Planning: Cable Television
Cable advertising provides fine jewelers the ability to visually showcase their products at a lower cost and in a more targeted format than network television. As mentioned last week, when advertising on network television, advertisers are showing their message to the entire designated market area (DMA).
If your store sits in the far south of your DMA, your message will be viewed by consumers in the far north, an area where you may be drawing traffic to your store. Cable advertising, however, gives you the ability to zone your advertising. This will lower your cost and allow you to build frequency in the areas where you draw a high percentage of your business. As you’ve seen with this series of articles regarding media planning, all advertising mediums have pros and cons to the fine jewelry industry, and cable television advertising is no different.
PROS:
• As mentioned above, cable advertising allows advertisers to zone their advertising, targeting ‘hot beds’ of business. Zoning also saves you dollars. To see a zone map, contact your cable advertising representative.
• ESPN’s Monday Night Football recently set an all-time cable viewing record with 21.9 million total viewers tuning in to watch the October matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers.
• Cable used to be the home for strictly ‘re-run’ programs of broadcast stations. Now with original programming such as Psych on USA, Meet the Browns on TBS, and Mad Men on AMC, cable is attracting more viewers than ever before.
• Talk to your local cable representative, but cable normally offers ‘auto fill’ to current advertisers, giving free spots in unsold day parts and during overnight programming.
• While most advertising mediums are seeing double-digit declines in ad spending, TNS Media Intelligence reports that spending on cable television has dropped by under 4 percent through October of 2009.
CONS:
• Unlike network television, not all consumers are wired for cable television, as some have satellite or do not subscribe to cable at all. Check with your representative to discuss the penetration in your market. If less than 50% of homes are wired for cable in your area, you might want to look elsewhere.
• Studies show that 13% of adults ages 18-64 are watching television less than a year ago and young adults 18-34 now rank television as a less important medium than the internet.
• Web streaming of television shows has become more popular, with Hulu.com reporting that site traffic has doubled since 2008. Nielsen Media Research reports that an average of over 4 million videos are streamed online monthly. This figure does not include streams on YouTube.com, a social video networking site.
• In most cases, cable television does not offer local news or local programming, so advertising strictly on cable takes you away from some of the local hook fine jewelers strongly desire.
WHEN TO USE:
If you’re faced with a limited budget or your customers are typically coming from one or two areas in close proximity to each other, cable is a viable medium to consider. Be sure to check the percentage of households that are equipped with cable in your area. If the number is less than 50%, do not invest a bulk of your dollars in this advertising medium. For those of you in larger markets, ranked 25 or above by Nielsen Media, cable may be the only financially viable chance you have to get your message out to the general public via broadcast television.
As rates are reasonable in most cases, do all that you can to avoid broad rotators (commercials that run 6am-6am). Try to stick with primetime rotators (7pm-11pm) or spot specific programming (Monday Night Football, Mad Men, etc…) where viewership tends to be higher. With plenty of stations available, there are stations and programs that best reach your target audience. Frequency is important to obtain, but reaching a high percentage of your audience is also vitally important.
These tips will aid in your 2010 media planning endeavor and save you time, money and potential mistakes. In the upcoming issues of Tuesday Tips & Tricks, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at the pros and cons of each advertising medium; next week, outdoor. Our media department will recommend how to use and approach each medium for effective advertising in 2010. If there’s an area you would like us to cover that is not listed above, please contact us and we will analyze that medium as well.
For in depth analysis of how Fruchtman Marketing’s media team can help you with your 2010 planning, please contact Brent Vogel, Jr. at brent@fruchtman.com
By Fruchtman on November 17, 2009 :: Filed under Act,Media Buffet
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