Staying Power: TV Ads Scores High Consumer Impact

Wayne Friedman,
Television advertising contributes more than half the impact of all marketing -- from initial awareness through purchasing -- when consumers are exposed to an overall campaign.
Of these totals, television gives consumers 43% awareness impact, while other media contributes a collective 37%, according to a new study released today by Yankelovich and the Television Bureau of Advertising.(20% of consumers say media had no influence.)
When it comes to making purchases -- the end of the marketing funnel -- TV advertising contributes to consumers' decisions 26% of the time. It's 27% for other media, while 47% of consumers say media has no impact on their decisions.
The study says a positive trend for television is that its share of media impact on a percentage basis remains relatively flat through all marketing phases -- from "awareness," "interest," "consider purchase," "want to purchase," "visit store/Web site" and "making purchases."
For all business categories, total advertising impacts consumers at an 80% level when it comes to awareness and declines to 53% when it comes to making purchases.
After television, the Internet has the second-strongest impact over other media, contributing 14% to "awareness," 13% to "consideration," 13% to "preference" and 12% to actual "purchase" levels.
Television has above-average awareness levels for consumers when it comes to health care and entertainment advertising.
The Internet over-indexes in the automotive, schools/colleges and entertainment categories. E-mail advertising does best with auto/life insurance.
Newspapers do well with department/discount stores and schools/colleges. Magazines are best with automotive and health care, while radio advertising has above average awareness with restaurants, schools/colleges and furniture stores.