COMMENTARY

TV Needs To Sell Premium Content - And Demographics Help

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 8 hours ago

Donna Speciale, president of advertising sales for Turner, hopes next year we won’t be using one well-known TV business term: demographics.

“We cannot be saying demo anymore,” Speciale said at the recent AT&T Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara, California. Then she gave it a timeline: “Next year, we cannot be saying demo anymore.”

That may be a big ask. TV sellers need to sell their premium content -- not just to advertisers, but to viewers. And perhaps to a broad range of viewers. How best to do it for those sellers? With a select group of key metrics -- selected groups of viewers.

This may not be all that helpful for advertisers, demanding specific results as it pertains to returns on their media investment --- website visits, store visits, and ultimately, incremental sales revenue.

Speciale says, with little opposition, current TV demographics, such as adults 18-49, are a “broad range.” And this isn’t good. “We all know that an 18-year-old and a 49-year-old have very different behaviors.”

 

Going forward, she adds networks have to be careful about becoming too targeted on linear TV. “We don’t want to lose that reach value.” But she agrees that TV needs to do a better job.

The question is: Can you sell this to marketers -- and for consumers in the long term? Will weekday morning consumer-targeted TV stories have accompanying charts of how many people went to Taco Bell the morning after a commercial was aired on NBC’s “The Voice”?

Maybe not. Brian Lesser, CEO, Xander, the advertising business of AT&T, said during Advertising Week it might come down to having a currency for each advertiser.

Nice. But what does this do for TV networks? Where is the “scale” message to drive those viewers to those shows, who in turn might show up at a Target, Starbucks or Home Depot in the following days.

Will that get confusing? Some advertising technology business terms are already at that level, such as addressable.

Speaking at the same AT&T conference, Scott Howe, CEO, LiveRamp -- the new company of what remains of Acxiom, the marketing data technology, following the sale to Interpublic Group -- said: “We are selling and talking about things in a way that -- quite frankly -- no one actually wants to buy them.”

However, he tells marketers much new media technology works well now. In turn, marketers tell him: “It feels like I bought a Porsche, but I don’t know how to drive it yet.” 

No problem. Just don’t let demographics steer.