Marketing vs TV Advertising

 

Till recently, online marketers considered the television content as a major rival. The question was ‘TV or not TV?’ However, the scenario has undergone a sea change in the past few years and it is estimated that spending on Internet ads will take over investments on TV ads in the US in another 10 years.

 

Top market research organisation Nielsen reports that the typical American watched 4 hours and 34 minutes of TV every day during 2006-2007, signifying an increase of 36 minutes every day from a decade earlier. And it is estimated that the TV advertising budget will be around $75.4 billion in 2012, moving up from $67.8 billion in 2007, denoting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of only 2.1 per cent.

 

On the other hand, spending on online advertising is anticipated to escalate at 19.2 per cent annually till 2012 and, as I mentioned earlier, will surpass TV advertising budget in the US in the next decade.

 

According to a recent study on TV watching trends, people will continue to watch more TV content in the future, but they will gain access to and watch it in different techniques than they have done before. It is also being forecast that by 2012 at least one-fourth of the TV content viewed daily will be moved on to the Web or mobile devices on people’s demand.

 

In fact, the consumers are already flooded with new methods like video-on-demand, digital video recorders, the broadband Web and 3G mobile phones to gain access to and watch TV. Going by the crucial TV and the Internet usage standards, the number of Internet users in the US is fast catching up on the volume of TV viewers.

 

According to experts, by 2012 around 190 million Internet users in the US will be regular viewers of online videos and with the increase of broadband facilities in households, online video content creation will become more specialised.  

 

The experts further forecast the presence of VOD facility in 60 per cent of TV homes and say that 40 per cent of them will possess DVR service in the US by 2012. These unique facilities will enable the consumers to be in command over the TV content they wish to watch or ignore. Although these does not mean an end for the customary televising or do away with the usual 30-second advertisement breaks, it calls for an urgent need to make TV advertising more progressive.

 

It is pertinent to note here that the conventional TV broadcasters and advertisers do not have enough time to set things in motion to re-invent themselves and their firms to take advantage of the benefits of the latest technological changes.

John Singh

www.macquarieit.com

www.johnsingh.com