When the Lords Committee recommended that Ofcom cut the amount of time that ‘cable’ TV channels can use for ads, it should have given media planner and buyers even more reason to consider how they should be looking to hit their reach and frequency ‘impact’ objectives online.
In concert with another recommendation that ITV no longer be bound by its CRR commitments, the proposals - should they be accepted and implemented - will almost certainly mean across-the-board price rises for TV advertising.
But, even without these rises, the argument for the continued gap between internet consumption and brand-led media spend wears thin.
The consumption of TV (that is televisual) content on the web is now enormous and the tools to create and deliver ‘TV’ advertising to online users - particularly through online ad networks - are both highly advanced and ubiquitous.
And, while we accept broadcast TV’s ability to deliver against brand awareness objectives is hard to match in the web’s lean-forward context, there is a page we can take straight from the traditional planner-buyer’s textbook to explain exactly why online video must be on the plan more often and at greater scale than it currently is - it’s headed ‘the law of diminishing returns’.
Put simply, after a certain point, the returns in impact you see for every extra pound you spend on reaching more people more often diminish.
At this point, the advertiser needs to look for different media to - cost-effectively - reach those people it hasn’t yet reached the number of times it needs to reach them.
It is at this point that planner-buyers in the TV department (not the online department) must turn to online.
Even without potential rises in TV prices, and the rather large benefits of fine-grain targeting and interactivity offered by online the gulf between user behaviour and advertiser spend is unsettling.
The Lords Committee’s recommendations act as a reminder of that gulf and give further cause to wonder why it’s not closing much more rapidly.