Recently, Dave Morgan, CEO and founder of New York-based Simulmedia, contributed an article toAdAge about the growing reach problem in TV advertising. It was an excellent article that highlights the way in which audience fragmentation is exacerbating the inefficiencies of traditional TV buying strategies. Most pointedly captured in the eye-opening statistic that ’20% of target viewers who are heavy TV viewers now receive 60% to 80% of most national TV campaign ratings’. Morgan’s solve for this ‘frequency imbalance’ is the utilization of TV’s ‘long tail’ (i.e. smaller rated shows & niche networks) to capture light to moderate viewing segments.
As a counterpoint to the above strategy, recent Nielsen research suggests that light TV viewers are the heaviest consumers of online video (& vice verse). Consequently, a potentially more elegant approach to reach under-represented TV prospects is the utilization of online video to literally ‘fill in the gaps’ of a TV schedule.
Nielsen has modeled its 25,000 TV people meter panel (the basis of the TV ratings measurement service) online, allowing our clients to precisely target light, moderate and even heavy TV viewers on an individual-by-individual basis, using Video. Post campaign reporting provides the ability to showcase both incremental reach and the ‘balancing’ of frequency, garnered by adding video to the TV mix.
Future iterations of the offering will also allow advertisers to look at the delivery of historic TV campaigns and proactively target segments under represented by the schedule, in video.
Vijay Rao, Senior Director of Client Strategy for Adap.tv
Tags: adage, advertising, audience, nielsen, reach, simulmedia, targeting, TV, video
