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TV – Brands’ Best Shopfront

Holiday shopping is one screen away – latest research points the TV air as brands’ most trusted to bring back the feeling of normalcy in gift shopping

With the beginning of the Fall, we all start feeling the impending holiday season. All roads point to more home-cooked meals, more evenings spent watching the family-favorite shows on TV, and undoubtedly, more excitement about the coming Christmas shopping. It turns out that the former and the latter are quite interconnected and there are several reasons why this keeps being valid even in times of turbulence.

While this holiday shopping spree will most likely be different from ever before, much like many other activities in 2020, what is certain is that consumers will still be looking for presents and ways to retain the normalcy of the Christmas emotion. While many stores have gone online to ease the access to their products and compensate for a lower demand in their physical stores, the attention generated by the on-screen TV presence remains high and in fact ensures an equitable visibility for brands whose businesses have migrated to or started relying more on e-commerce.

An ad placed across the TV not only ensures 100% of the audience attention 100% of the time *, but also signals a brand’s superiority for the end consumer who is on the lookout for their next best purchase amid a continuous flow of advertising messages. However, with every product just a click away from purchase, placing all brands at a relatively equal footing, what begins to matter more in the customer’s mind is that of a brand’s “location” in it. A strong TV presence enhances the retail association and amplifies that product’s mental availability.

Many brands have been experiencing difficult times since early Spring due to COVID-19’s overall effect over the industry. However, the most successful ones set to reemerge as winners over time, will be the ones who never went dark and kept investing in their brand’s presence to stay at the top of the consumer’s mind. What is more, retaining your presence speaks to the audiences that the brands they look for and trust are still there for them, helping them rely on safe and known products.

While digital platforms keep gaining momentum due to an ease of access and instant information exchange, TV is the medium that not only ensures the most brand safe ad environment but also captures the biggest portion of the audience that one could also trace and verify with credible data. It has the ability to drive trust and deliver the key messages to consumers using all senses, because TV commands much more attention and ensures a much longer sales impact than videos shown on social media or YouTube. For marketers that means that efforts should be focused on including more media in a mix of integrated advertising campaigns. What is more, the latest research confirms the tendency of TV being not only the most trusted medium, but also a standard for high quality viewing with consumers having much more trust in the ads they see on TV than on any other channel.

At the onset of the crisis, companies feared they would have to revamp their entire business to cope with its repercussions. Well, not necessarily, especially if an ad message was good before the crisis, that ad message will keep being good after it. And even for those who fear that the traditional physical shopping experience might change, the customer experience will still have its way - in front of the TV screen.

By Konstantina Bandutova

*https://mediasales.rte.ie/news/the-art-of-attention-karen-nelson-field-in-rte/