The Surprising Relevance of TV Advertising in the Mobile Era

When streaming video services on mobile came onto the scene people started predicting the death of television. To be honest, I was one of them. Many people thought this way because they believed the only reason people didn’t watch TV on their phones is because they couldn’t. The functionality was not there for the masses. Once people could watch TV on mobile, people thought the flood gates would open and the days of staring at the big screen in your living room were long gone.

Turns out we were wrong. TV is still a big player. How do we know?

Recently Statista dispelled the myth that TV is dead. They cited data from the latest edition of the American Time Use Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics which showed on average Americans spend more time watching television today than they did 10 years ago.

Wait… what about all the time people spend on their mobile device? It turns out that mobile usage is high as well and may be even higher than television. The sad reality is people are spending less “quality” time away from electronics. TV’s not taking the hit. It’s the “quality” time and conversations with people that’s being replaced – but this is a rant for another day.

Ok, so we know that people are still watching TV but is it still an effective form of advertising? Does TV advertising still impact sales? Well, this question is best answered on an individual basis but overall our Return on Marketing Investment studies would prove this to be true.

In short, our Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) analysis looks at a wide range of marketing activities (TV advertising, print, radio, OOH, digital, etc.) and relevant external variables (employment rate, weather, gas prices, S&P 500, etc.). The goal of a ROMI analysis is to answer specific marketing questions. For example, “Is TV advertising contributing to sales?” Or “Which marketing activity, when combined with TV advertising, is most influential on sales?”

Our experience doing this analysis for clients show us that most of the time TV is still an effective use of advertising dollars. Believe what you may, the numbers speak for themselves.