Tess Alps, Chief Executive Thinkbox
Nothing beats watching TV advertising work for yourself
As you may know, at Thinkbox we devote our time to explaining, proving and promoting the power of TV and the effects it has so that advertisers can make the most out of the most potent advertising tool at their disposal.
When people come to us with questions about TV advertising – or even accusations against it – or when we step on to any platform and speak (and we will happily speak on pretty much ANY platform, bar soap boxes in parks), we are armed to the teeth with robust evidence to back up the assertions we make about TV advertising.
A lot of it is our own research: in the last couple of years we have commissioned many major pieces of research that have shown, among many things, the unrivalled payback that TV delivers, the effects it has on the emotional part of the brain, the popularity of TV among young people, and the profoundly complementary relationship that TV has with the internet – especially with search and the various social media that exist online.
But, despite all this evidence – plus the rigorous work of the likes of the IPA and BARB – despite all the cumulated knowledge we have at our disposal, there is nothing like watching the effects of a TV ad campaign unfold for yourself. We have found this out with our new TV ad featuring a rather amazing dog called Harvey who wins over a couple looking to adopt a dog by showing them a TV ad he’s made. You can watch it here [link to http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1339].
The ultimate goal for our ad – as with all our activity – is to attract and maintain investment in TV advertising. But it is impossible to isolate exactly how this one part of our activity will affect TV advertising revenue. TV ad revenues have gone up since our first TV ad last year, but this campaign – and the rest of the work Thinkbox does to promote TV advertising – is just one factor behind any increase in TV ad revenues or TV’s share of advertising revenue.
However, there are many steps on the road to attracting advertising investment. The first is interest in advertising on TV and our ad is certainly delivering that. As well as endless buzz online about an ad within an ad that’s about ads, we have seen our web traffic increase by 400% since the ad began and direct enquiries about getting into TV advertising have shot up by around 500%. The prank calls and dog enthusiasts are on top of this.
Then there is the general public, most of who are not interested in launching a TV ad campaign. Our first ad generated a fair bit of popular interest and comment, but nothing like this. All the points we regularly make about TV – that it is the ultimate fuel for social media, that young people love it, that online search feeds off it, that is creates emotion like nothing else, that it can be a force for good, that people simply love talking about good ads – all these points have been underlined by our recent experience with our own ad.
Online views of our Harvey ad via YouTube and our own player at www.thinkbox.tv are creeping towards the one million mark; on YouTube there are more emoticons, LMFAOs and ROFLs than I care to mention; Harvey the dog’s Facebook page has nearly 2,000 likes with endless requests to adopt Harvey and ‘best ad evers’; the soundtrack to the ad – ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’ by Bachman-Turner Overdrive – moved 10,000 places up the Amazon download chart in a week; the chatter on Twitter about the ad has been constant and overwhelmingly positive; Google searches for key terms peak around the ad appearing on TV…there’s even a rumour that dog adoptions are on the increase.
All this is a great demonstration of what the internet has to offer TV advertising in terms of amplification and capturing the interest created. But, despite all these wonderful online numbers, the number we never lose sight of is the 89 million times it has been seen on linear TV. All other numbers flow from that.
Tess Alps
Chief Executive, Thinkbox