How to Increase Brand Awareness with TV Advertising

In advertising, brand recognition can provide an added boost in the buyer’s journey. As a broad audience becomes more acquainted with a brand through repeated ad exposure, they are more likely to convert to a customer. In the pursuit of brand awareness, TV is king, and new technology makes it more impactful than ever. Here’s how this medium provides brand recognition unlike any other platform.

The Opportunities for Brand Awareness in TV Advertising

1. TV Now Has Targeting

Traditional TV advertising relied on vague, educated guesses on where and when to find their audience. Marketers would explore the demographics of channel viewership and time slots throughout the day to get as close to their ideal consumer as possible. What resulted, though, was chunks of their ad spend wasted on uninterested audiences.

In recent years, as digital advertising tactics gained a competitive edge due to their targeting and attribution capabilities, TV learned to adapt. Fueled by anonymous first- and third-party data, TV ads can now target specific audiences on a more granular level. Further still, they can curate attribution metrics after an ad runs,  seamlessly closing the campaign loop.

This powerful tool of data-driven TV allows brands to grow their potential customer base exponentially and prove their ROI more concretely than ever before. Tools like NYI’s TV+ provide best-in-class conversion analytics provided by top cable providers and industry-leading partners in the New York DMA. With this more precise picture of advertising efforts, brands can more effectively demonstrate the impact of media buys by providing insights into consumer conversion paths.

2. TV Provides Reach

Brand advertising is a long game. Its purpose is to establish a good outlook on a brand to a greater audience than its target base, so reach is crucial to its success. Unlike targeted ads, which rely on favorable conversion metrics, brand awareness campaigns depend on exposure—the average amount of times a customer sees an ad.

An affluent car brand, for example, uses brand awareness ads to give younger consumers something to aspire to as they grow into the bracket that can afford their vehicles. When they’re older and more established financially, then they’ll already have an affinity to the luxury brand and eventually purchase their cars.

With data fueling TV campaigns in recent years, this platform also has the scale to reach as many ideal customers as possible. Combining these short and long-term TV advertising goals allows brands to capture an immediate ROI while also pushing for future sales down the road.

3. TV Generates a Multiplier Effect on Other Channels

Generating brand awareness exists at the top of the marketing funnel—exposing, influencing, and engaging customers with their overall mission. While this aspect of client conversion isn’t easily quantifiable, it is an essential aspect of landing the sale. If an audience has heard of a brand, they are more likely to convert when faced with a call-to-action.

TV is a crucial medium for brand awareness as its reach capabilities can then amplify efforts on other platforms. When TV works in conjunction with digital, for example, a brand’s ROI can increase 60%1. TV ads also influence online brand search by up to 80%2, as viewers look up a product or service after seeing an ad.

Even in the growing OTT space—which is typically considered a competitor of TV advertising—brand favorability lift doubles when combining TV ads and OTT efforts3. This combo becomes particularly impactful with the advent of data-driven TV, which infuses targeting and attribution techniques into this established marketing channel. What results is more extensive outreach to a brand’s ideal audience, capturing traditional TV viewers and increasingly elusive cord-cutters alike.

Sources: 1. Analytic Partners, 2016; Analysis based on over 3,200 campaigns from 2010-2015. Digital includes video and display advertising on desktop and mobile devices. Study presented at the 2016 ARF Conference. 2. FastCasual, 2017. 3. VAB 2018 “Living Together in Harmony.”