Harnessing the power of the screen

With Kiwis watching a minimum average of two hours per day, there’s no doubt that TV plays a critical role in generating commercial results for advertisers. An organisation championing this is ThinkTV, offering insight that matters to marketers.

Existing to champion the power, value, and effectiveness of TV advertising, ThinkTV was established in 2018 to maintain a sustainable and successful television industry in Aotearoa. 

With founding members TVNZ, Warner Bros. Discovery and Sky, the marketing and research association’s ultimate goal is to help advertisers and agencies get the best out of todays multi-platform TV.

As a marketer, Jodene Murphy, ThinkTV’s General Manager, feels this role provides an opportunity to help address some of the problems she’s faced.

“Everything the team does starts with thinking about the biggest challenges facing marketers right now, and how we could help to tackle them with the right research, the best expert or the appropriate project for the job.”

One of these challenges is using the right language to influence the right investment outcome. For this, the ThinkTV team asked home-grown advertising effectiveness expert James Hurman to share the concept of building future demand and looking at how to flip language to prompt more powerful commercial conversations when brand building.

Another challenge ThinkTV spotted was connecting marketing science theory with practical applications
and outcomes. Here, Grace Kite shared her analysis in a video session called ‘The Wrong and The Real of It’, available to watch on ThinkTV’s website. This discussion draws on the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, and looks at how their theory turns up in the real world for brands of different shapes and sizes. 

“Making braver creative choices for better commercial outcomes is also becoming more important in a busy world,” says Jodene.

“Standing out is the key to having an effective campaign, so we asked Brent Smart, previous CMO of IAG Australia, to share his journey to transform an insurance brand through ruthless creativity.”

To support this idea, the association has also been examining the role that creative plays in effectiveness.

“From a media perspective, the critical role that TV plays in generating commercial results is well documented, but making the right media choices is only part of the puzzle. There is a lot of data to show it is just as important to make great creative choices.”

Because it is hard to quantify creative due to its subjective nature, ThinkTV works with The Research Agency (TRA) producing a regular set of data looking at New Zealand’s favourite television ads.

“That helps us understand why particular pieces of work are landing well with New Zealanders so over time we can paint a really strong picture of why they love it, why it resonates.”

Not only does this offer marketers some healthy competition but with every survey ThinkTV and TRA take a deep dive into a particular aspect of work that is resonating well and examines how marketers can apply that to their own work.

“There’s now more choice for audiences and more places for people to go to for their content. 

“That puts a lot of pressure on marketers to be even closer to their target customers with an even deeper understanding of their lives so they can get their attention and keep it.”

Getting attention is becoming increasingly difficult as consumers are surrounded by content all the time and it moves so rapidly.

“Brands are not just competing with their category competitors, but they are competing for brain space in the noise of the day that’s hitting consumers from multiple platforms and sometimes all at the same time.

“The most successful work is coming from brands who are making bolder creative choices,” says Jodene.

“Whether it is more emotional, or more personalised so it’s rewarding for the audience, and committing to an idea for longer to really build up that connection with the audience. 

“Three million New Zealanders are watching broadcast TV every week and almost 90 percent of it is live. 1.6 million watch Broadcast Video On Demand every week and those numbers are growing. So, audiences are there in a big way, and marketers have the ability to reach them really efficiently – but who is standing out from a creative perspective.”

An area where New Zealand broadcasters have the upper hand is the creation of local content.

“New Zealanders love to see themselves on the screen and it’s really important culturally to make sure, as there is more content globally, that there is more local content that captures New Zealand life,” Jodene says.

For advertisers, this means there is more opportunity to integrate their brands from the start and be involved at the production stage, which results in more attention and better engagement.

The way people are watching is changing too. As more content is put online, there is more need for
connected televisions or streaming capable TVs.

“The last time I looked 50 percent of New Zealand homes have a streaming capable TV. That’s growing quite rapidly year-on-year, and we know that when on demand video content is watched on a bigger screen the co-viewing that comes with that means more eyeballs on your advertising as well as well as more targeting opportunities. It’s why we encourage advertisers to think about the Total TV universe and what that means for their campaign planning.”

Nielsen New Zealand have recently completed an installation of 500 streaming meters in New Zealand households which, when launched, will provide invaluable insight into the nation’s viewing behaviours across streaming services and lay the foundation for total measurement.

Jodene says that ultimately, across platform TV is “hugely efficient for long-term brand building activity,
emotional storytelling, and engagement capability that you can’t really get across other media. And it has the huge benefit of being a safe space for your brand”.

“With premium and professionally developed content that you know audiences are super engaged with,
now being watched on multiple devices, which are highly targetable and highly measurable, it’s also a super effective media channel for tactical and targeted activity.”

While historically TV was once viewed as a place simply for brand building, the growth of streaming means more opportunities to target and personalise across multiple platforms and multiple formats which means more ways to bring creative to life, engage with target audiences and hit those commercial objectives. “Total TV is the best of all the worlds.” 

For more insight from ThinkTV, visit thinktv.co.nz

This article was first published in the 22/23 December/January issue of NZ Marketing magazine.

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