A special note on Forrester: I'm biased to not think much of their research: since the early 1990s they predicted Microsoft would win the online wars (but somehow initially ignored AOL, then Google) and also basically predicted that by now DVRs would completely destroy television advertising.
Universal desires: less clutter, more relevance! Just like you and me, advertisers want the same thing. I'm shocked. SHOCKED!
On the good news front, only 19% of the respondents believed the 30 second spot would be dead in 10 years. It's nice to know that 81% of the respondents aren't dumbasses.
As long as sports are around, there will be 30 second spots. Anyone predicting the death of sports in 10 years? Anyone? I didn't think so.
via press release:
ANA/Forrester Survey: TV Advertising Budgets Are Under Siege
Fifth ANA/Forrester Survey Measures Marketers’ Attitudes Toward TV/Video Advertising
Cambridge, Mass., February 8, 2010 . . . A joint ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and Forrester Research Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) survey of more than 100 national advertisers illustrates marketers’ continued lack of confidence in the effectiveness of television ads. And while they still express faith in the future of the 30-second spot, advertisers feel that the fundamentals to support their use is in need of an overhaul. Specifically, they express dissatisfaction with the current measurement techniques, an interest in more targeted ads, and a desire for less ad clutter and more relevance.
Respondents to the Association of National Advertisers/Forrester study of national advertisers said their TV ad spending will remain flat this year. They also reported allocating only 41 percent of their media budgets to television last year versus 58 percent in our 2008 survey. Other findings include:
- A lack of confidence in TV ad effectiveness. Sixty-two percent of respondents think that TV ads have become less effective in the past two years. Clutter is the main challenge to TV ad effectiveness: 69 percent of advertisers would like fewer commercials per pod.
- Renewed faith in the 30-second commercial. Only 19 percent of respondents believe that the 30-second spot will be dead in 10 years, down from 28 percent a year ago.
- A desire for more targeted TV ads but a reluctance to pay for them. Seventy-eight percent of respondents say they would be interested in the ability to target consumers more precisely, but only 59 percent would be willing to pay a premium for it.
- Dissatisfaction with measurement. Nearly all advertisers who responded think that the TV industry needs new audience metrics beyond reach and frequency. Eighty-two percent of respondents would be interested in ratings for individual commercials.
- High interest in branded entertainment and interactive media. Eighty percent of advertisers agree that branded entertainment will play much more of a role in TV advertising, and 38 percent plan to spend more on branded advertising in 2010 as an alternative to the 30-second spot. Seventy-five percent of respondents believe that interactive TV will be an effective source of lead generation, but only 28 percent plan to spend more on interactive TV ads in 2010.
“As the overall marketing landscape is in the midst of a massive shift, so is the iconic medium of television,” said ANA President and CEO Bob Liodice . “The standard methods of delivery and measurement need to adapt to what marketers today need: more specificity, greater effectiveness, and more detailed measurement. ROI is one of the most crucial aspects of marketing today, and the processes behind TV must be held to the same scrutiny as marketers.”
“CMOs need to prepare for television’s digital future by forcing change upon the TV advertising ecosystem,” said Forrester Research Vice President and Research Director David M. Cooperstein . “We recommend that advertisers get ready for the future of television by preparing to deliver targeted commercials, delivering true branded entertainment experiences, and embracing the connected TV.”
The survey results will be presented at the ANA's TV & Everything Video Forum in New York on February 11, 2010. Respondents to the Forrester/ANA survey include 104 advertisers across 21 major industries, representing nearly $14 billion in media budgets. The survey was conducted from December 2009 to January 2010.
Full survey results are available to select Forrester clients in the new Forrester report “TV Advertising Budgets Are Under Siege.” ANA members can access the report at http://www.ana.net/thoughtleadership.
About Forrester Research
Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 20 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 26 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com.
I always wonder why when someone is reporting statistics sometimes they will spell out the number (seventy-eight) and other times put it in numerals (74), and even switch in the same sentence. Does anyone know why? To me it makes it harder to read.
Anyway, is 30 second an important part of the question? Like, could it be that 30 second ads won’t be as frequent, but shorter 10 – 15 seconds ads might be more frequent, or are they just using that “30 second ad” to refer to all commercials?
JustTunedIn
There are rules about that in a style, grammar, and punctuation book called the Chicago Manual of Style (and probably other books as well but that’s the one that comes to mind).
Generally, if a number leads a sentence, it is spelled out (numbers opening a sentence looks funny, probably). So “Sixty-one people” is the start of the sentence, not “61 people”. I don’t think it matters on colons, however — it can be numerical since it is part of a sentence, but I am not sure. It appears this example is the bulk of the number-switching in the above survey release. If a large number (such as 1,382,909) is at the front of a sentence, people writing these things usually (but not always) do something like “The survey found 1,382,909 people…” instead of just leading with the huge number to be consistent with this “don’t lead with numbers” rule.
As to switching between numbers in a sentence (especially if using twenty-eight vs 28, for example), that gets a bit trickier and sometimes just depends on the writers. Some places will use numbers anywhere but the first word in a given sentence, while others will spell it out up to a certain barrier (one hundred, for example, using a range “one” to “one hundred” and then switch to 101). Other companies may have internal rules (for whatever reasons) that modify these rules.
As to why, well, I can only guess that someone somewhere in the past decided these were acceptable formats for numbers in a properly printed, grammar-based sense. Even so, a lot of it depends on the medium of print (magazines and books follow somewhat different rules in some areas and press releases can be all over the map on style choices, which these number rules sort of fall into).
I hope this helps a little bit. Maybe someone more in-the-know on these things can add/clarify this?
It is nice to know 81% of surveyed people are a bit more intelligent than the average store-bought basket of blueberries.
I’m with you, Robert, on the sports question. The only way sports will be dead in 10 years is if the entirety of the known world civilizations have collapsed back into the Stone Age… at which point commercial surveys will be among the least of our concerns.
re: Advertising’s effectiveness…
Internet display advertising is so ineffective that the term “banner blindness” was coined to describe it…
Yet TV is radically, magically different…after all, they charge 10 times more – so they must be worth 10 times more…
Right? Right?
Nightstar says:
“Generally, if a number leads a sentence, it is spelled out (numbers opening a sentence looks funny, probably).”
This convention may also have to do with the traditional use of ranging rather than titling figures in the run of text, which would obscure the start of the sentence. Even if one had a consistently designed set of ranging and titling figures, I think the notion of “uppercase numerals” would strike most as peculiar, even though the distinction is often applied to Roman numerals.
The most ineffective aspect of TV ads, for me, are the changes in volume. I assume that the commercial being 20% louder than the show I’m watching is some sort of attention grabbing technique, but it only results in me hitting the ‘mute’ button when I otherwise would have perhaps watched the ad in rapt attention.
“It’s nice to know that 81% of the respondents aren’t dumbasses.”
Hilarious, Robert
Reminds me of a recurring joke from the news show game on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, where one of the guys would pretend to be a news anchor and read the top stories of the day. One of them was something like, “A recent study indicated that 9 out of 10 Americans believe the 10th one should really chill out.”