What are some advantages and disadvantages of using TV as an advertising medium, and how do these factors affect the use of major national advertisers and smaller local companies?

In the past, advertisers viewed television as the ideal medium for promotional purposes. But due to recent technological advancements, the importance of advertising through television has now changed. Now-a-days, people are not limited to only watching TV, they are thought to spend a great amount of time surfing the web, playing on their Ipads, Iphones, and tablets, and more recently people have the ability to fast-forward advertisements when they are watching their favorite programs!!!!  It’s so easy to just skip all the advertisements during a show.  Although TV might be the easiest and most common way to reach the masses, is it still the best way to advertise?  There are several pros and cons when advertising through this medium… but the question is do the pros outweigh the cons?

Advantages:

There are several benefits when using TV as an advertising medium.

Creativity:

Using television commercials gives advertisers the ability to combine visual images, sounds, motion, and color, allowing the advertiser to be as creative, imaginative as they wish, and they can now appeal to more consumers world wide. Advertisers are also given the opportunity to attract customers by appealing to a consumer’s sense of sight and sound. Commercials that directly appeal to these senses can change the viewer’s mood through humor or ethos, even their overall perception of the advertised brand, as well. Emotional appeal is a key advantage of advertising through television over the less attractive appeals of other mediums.  Today, advertisements can also be shown using HD Resolutions, allowing audiences to view the ad crystal clear, vividly detailed, and very lifelike images across their flat screen tv’s.

Coverage & Cost:

Television has the ability to reach the masses. Ask yourself this question… How many people you know that do not watch TV? (Shows like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and Games of Thrones make it hard for me to ignore my television.) With the popularity and coverage of various programs, audiences regardless of age, sex, income, and education level are bound to watch some form of television. TV gives advertisers the benefit of reaching the masses (globally) in a cost efficient manner. For example, companies that take part in distribution their product and services word wide reach millions of viewers. The prices companies had paid last year to advertise on average have cost between $50- AND UP in normal time slots (Wagner, n.p.). PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and AT&T take advantage of using television as their main source advertising globally. For local companies, they have the ability to reach their targeted market easily, and also cost efficiently averaging $25(and up) for standard 30-second spots.

Flexibility & Selectivity

Advertisers also have the ability to select what channels and time of day their ads will run, which allows them to reach their target audience. For example, Toys-R-Us usually runs ads on Cartoon Network, while Pepsi and Coke run ads during huge occasions like the super bowl to reach their largest targeted demographic.

Disadvantages:

Although there are many advantages of advertising using TV as a medium there are limitations, as well.

Cost & Selectivity

It can be inexpensive to reach a large pull of audiences, but some companies are forced to spend millions in order to compete for airtime. Costs are derived from buying airtime, and the cost of producing and creating commercial. On average, in total for a 30-minute nationwide spot on a popular Station, it is nearly $400,000 dollars. Media driven creative strategies that also target specific groups, such as Hispanics and African Americans can also be pricy due to selectiveness in various channels, and fighting for time slots with large companies. Local ads can also be pricy, and are usually not appealing, which is also a waste of time, money, and the effort, if it does not attract audiences.

Advertisers seeking small-targeted audiences to generate a lot of waste coverage, and might not even grab the attention of their audience. Local advertisements might also reach audiences outside their targeted market, in a geographic sense. Case in point, local advertisements in Pittsburgh reach regions in Ohio, Maryland, and West Virginia, which are customers who are out of reach, making their commercials, waste coverage, and inefficient to the company. For local ads, newspapers, emails, radio ads, and magazines might be a better and a less expensive medium for adverting to select pools of people.

Clutter & Limited Viewer Attention:

Advertisers seem to forget that they are not buying guaranteed exposure, but in fact a chance to communicate their message to large numbers of consumers. People often use their TiVo  or DVR to zip through ads, eliminating the purpose of ads altogether.  (I avoid commercials like the black plague.)

Also, clutter is another disadvantage advertisers face. Some stations take advantage of advertising their owns shows during commercials breaks and cutting paid ads slot times down to 9-seconds, clutter eliminates audiences attention and also can make the audience even more uninterested in paying attention to ads, and more anxious to get back to the TV show that they were watching to begin with. The CW is one station that comes to mind when thinking about clutter. Every time I tune in, I see ads that promote their own shows rather than other products or company’s  ads.

All in all, I believe the pros outweigh the cons when using TV as a medium for advertising. I also think it is important to diversify advertising outlets through various mediums, especially for smaller ads, and local companies.

Works Cited:
How Much Does Television Advertising Really Cost? | Chron.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/much-television-advertising-really-cost-58718.html
Belch, GE. and Belch, MA.  Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 9th Edition.  McGraw-Hill Companies.  2012.