"You mean, TV's NOT dead?"

From MediaWeek.

While many television networks, including NBC and CBS, are approaching the upfront marketplace with sales presentations that include hefty praise and pitches for their digital platforms, Fox is concentrating its efforts on selling television as the overwhelming choice for advertisers to get their best return on investment. Fox sales and marketing executives say that while it is trendy to praise online and other emerging media for their effectiveness in targeting consumers, only a very small percentage of online opportunities offer the kind of sight-sound-motion video advertising that engages and motivates consumers on the same level as TV spots. To prove the point, Fox hired custom research firm Marketing Evolution, which compiled the results of 40 previous "Return on Marketing Objectives" studies it did for individual advertisers across major product categories such as automotive, movies, financial services, consumer electronics and packaged goods. Overall, Marketing Evolution's aggregate study found that, compared to online and print, TV advertising proved the most effective by a big margin in impacting consumers' product awareness, product familiarity and intent to purchase. Combining all those factors into one, Marketing Evolution found that TV accounts for nearly 70 percent of the impact on consumers to make purchase decisions, said David Gantman, executive vp of Marketing Evolution. Among some of the Marketing Evolution conclusions:

- TV delivers the strongest consumer awareness relative to dollars invested.
- TV influences about twice the volume of impact for purchase intent, although print is a very cost-efficient method to effect purchase intent.
- TV can even be used effectively as a targeted medium to produce more effectiveness toward consumer purchase intent.
- TV can be used successfully in either launching a brand or maintaining a brand.

The report concludes by stating, "It's clear that television should continue to be a core medium for both launching and sustaining marketing campaigns, with print, radio, out-of-home, online and cinema playing an important complimentary role in an advertiser's overall media plan."

Thanks to Graeme Newell's Marketing IdeaNet for the article.