The nations & regions’ advertising market for TV advertising across all broadcasters has grown massively over the past decade and is now worth over £800m… that’s how much regional agencies, of all shapes and sizes, spent on TV on behalf of clients last year, and it’s becoming a growing share of the total UK TV advertising market.

As the cost of living crisis begins to unfold and businesses across categories are supporting customers, ITV’s 14 regions can help you de-risk your advertising strategy by following your audience and mirroring your operational return to ‘normal’. So, superserve your customers by…

• Tailoring your creative with a relevant regional message or regional accent

• Upweighting regions where your stores are open

• Adding new regions week-by-week 

• Adding addressable targeting capabilities on ITVX to reach lighter TV viewers and thus increase your campaign reach

• Plug in your business results with our regional planning capabilities 

• Test and learn with our ITV AdLabs geo testing product, supporting brands scaling up using regionality

• Cut costs and risk with regional advertising

With the cost of advertising on ITV regionally remaining great value for money, you can afford to spend less. 
Alongside higher levels of viewing across linear live viewing and across our streaming service ITVX, your campaign will be seen by more people than a year ago too. To de-risk further, book your campaign week-by-week, capitalising on late access to airtime without penalty as we aim to make TV and VOD buying more flexible, including using our self-serve platform Planet V.
 
Test and learn as you scale up 

From mass simultaneous live reach in linear to 35.3m registered users on ITVX, everything can be broken down by region and by audience to enable you to test and learn as you scale up again. VOD advertising increased by 55% in 2021 with advertisers using Planet V with an increase of 250% in VOD only campaigns.
 
Many advertisers already capitalise on our regionality – that’s why over half of ITV’s advertisers are able to build their business successfully by spending under £50,000 with us. It has been a great gateway for businesses to scale up and power their brands, such as:
 

• Ashdale Home Improvements, who operate in the North East, increasing sales by 138% with ITV Backing Business

• US based SimpliSafe who used ITV to launch their business in the UK market to create brand awareness amongst homeowners, growing visits to their website by 153%

• Smol, who’s customer subscriptions increased by a massive 237% in the North-West as a result of their regional ITV Campaign

• Zizzi's achieved a 367% uplift in advertising recall with ITV Backing Business

A new era for business is throwing up challenges and opportunities and raising lots of questions: What is the optimum share of voice? How should you phase your campaign across the week? Are consumer habits changing?

Our ITV AdLabs innovation hub is always finding new ways to measure attribution on a regional basis. A simple regional test and control approach using our geo-test pilot product will help you get some quick learnings and speedy wins. Only ITV’s regional network gives brands the ability to do that at scale flexibly. Our AdLabs geo-test pilot product can adapt to your business needs to measure short, medium and long-term ROI as well as brand equity and bottom of funnel metrics such as search and site visits too.

Regionality is one of our most important superpowers.  ITV was born in the Northwest and has grown from there. Our regional news gives people a sense of locality and identity. Regionality has always been in our DNA… it’s why we have our regional commercial HQ in Manchester and why so many of our programmes are not only made but also set right around the UK’s nations and regions.

There’s never been a better time to take advantage of ITV’s regionality and flexibility, by minimising risk and maximising opportunity.
 

Jason Spencer

Business Development Director, ITV Commercial