Measuring the Power of TV and Creative

Summary

This brief presentation from the ARF’s 2017 Audience Measurement Conference summarizes six conclusions from a series of studies conducted by Nielsen Catalina for CBS:

• Based on an analysis of over 800 cross-media campaigns, television was found to have a considerably larger reach than digital.
• Nielsen Catalina data from 2017 indicate that television is more likely reach an advertiser’s -intended audience – be “on-target” – than digital.
• An analysis of a television advertising campaign for a major soft drink brand found “recency effects”: Ads that ran during Prime or late night on either Thursday or Friday (close to weekend shopping) showed purchase impact and positive ROAS (Return On Ad Spend).
• To examine the sales contribution of different campaign elements, almost 500 TV and digital campaigns were analyzed. As in past studies, such as the 2006 Apollo project, Creative was found to be the most important factor – more influential than Reach, Media, Brand, or Targeting. However, compared to past studies, the relative impact of Creative has diminished; the impact of Media factors has increased.
• Comparing the role of different elements for TV vs. digital campaigns, the analysis found Creative to be particularly important for digital campaigns. In fact, on TV, media choices ¾ that is where and when the ads were shown ¾  turned out to be more important than Creative.