Austin Advertising Agency Frink Inc. » Cable Television Advertising

20 Years in TV Production and Advertising

thundercow — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:22:29 +0000

Television Advertising in Local Markets

I’ve been involved in hundreds of local television advertising campaigns since 1990: first as a cable advertising sales person, and for the past eight years as the owner of an advertising agency specializing in television and radio advertising campaigns for local markets. Some of the campaigns were successful and lasted for years. Many were failures and for obvious reasons lasted a short period of time. A few of the successful campaigns were for advertisers that were customers of mine when I was in sales for Time Warner Cable and became clients when I started Frink Inc. Advertising. The causes for a campaign’s success or failure were varied but the successes all shared some common fundamentals.

Fundamentals for Success in Local Television Advertising

1. Define Success: Why are investing in a television advertising campaign? Is television advertising your primary tactic in generating leads and making sales s or is it just one of several tactics and mediums being used in your overall marketing and sales strategy? Having a well defined purpose for the campaign and how it fits into your overall marketing and sales strategy as opposed to a general purpose of getting our name out there is the foundation for building a successful campaign.

2. A compelling product or service: Television advertising is relatively expensive so I advise prospects and clients that unless you’re comfortable with no return on your investment you should have research or evidence that there is a demand for what you’re selling.

3. A clear Call to Action: The message has to be clear and concise. The audience has to know what’s in it for them and what you want them to do about it. Call, come in, visit your website, or all of the above.

4. Professional production: This starts with the writing or concept. The simpler the concept is to execute the better. You need broadcast quality professional lighting, cameras, editing equipment and operators who are professional and committed to making your commercial a success.

5. Media Placement: First know your target, demographically and geographically. Each local station and cable network have programming that serves specific core demographic audiences. You need objective audience research to pick the programming suitable for your campaign. Local cable provides an option to target an audience geographically.

6. Budget: You must have an adequate budget to achieve frequency and to sustain the campaign for several weeks. A benchmark for a minimum length of a campaign is about three months. For a new campaign if you’re not getting some tangible results within three weeks I recommend pausing and re-evaluating your strategy.

In the digital and YouTube age television is still a compelling medium that can be an incredibly effective advertising and marketing tool if you know how to use it.

Cable Television Advertising-”How not to”

thundercow — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:00:13 +0000

Cable television advertising is an inexpensive and easy way to get your business’ message on television. Spots can be purchased for as little as $10 or less. You may be able to target your specific trade area. Your local cable provider might even produce your television commercial for free!

How can you go wrong?

1. Letting the cable provider write the script and control the production of your commercial.

The sales people and the production people with the cable provider are not professional script writers and it’s not what they get paid to do. In fact their compensation is not tied to the quality or effectiveness of the commercials they’re producing. The production people know how to operate a camera and know something about lighting and audio but to do a professional job they need to be supervised and directed by a professional television advertising producer.

You don’t have to be an advertising writer/producer to have noticed local television commercials that seemed a little gamey or less than polished. It’s probable that these are spots written and produced by a local cable provider or television station.

2. Making your media buy based solely on the recommendation of the sales rep.

The sales rep is not a professional media buyer. The cable rep’s charge is to sell cable network advertising inventory at the highest possible rate that they can charge. Another responsibility of the sales rep is to sell inventory that is less in demand whether or not it’s suitable for the advertiser. Therefore their recommendations are influenced by several factors that are unrelated to your best interests.

3. Buying Cheap Spots.

Cheap spots are cheap for a reason. The audience is small therefore the demand for them is low. A campaign of hundreds cheap spots even if they’re targeted to a niche audience isn’t going to reach enough of your market to help you unless it’s combined with spots that reach a large audience.

4. Buying a “Package”.

Cable providers are always selling packages. There’s the “Summer Sizzler” the “Hot Spots”, the “Lots-O-Spots” or just the plain old “Frequency Package”. These are designed to sell inventory that doesn’t normally sell. Usually a combination of Monday-Friday daytime inventory, Monday-Sunday 5am-12midnight rotators on low demand networks such as CNBC, Animal Planet, Oxygen and The Travel Channel that are packaged together so the average spot rate comes in at less than $10 or so. The purpose of these packages is to sell unsold inventory for the cable operator. This is probably not an effective strategy for a unique advertiser.

5. Not evaluating your market’s local television stations.

Don’t assume you can’t afford to incorporate local broadcast stations into your plan or even use broadcast exclusively. If your target audience is lower income or retirees your local broadcast stations may be the best choice.

Conclusion
I sold local television advertising for Time Warner Cable in Austin, Texas for ten years. For the last nine years I’ve planned and executed media buys for my clients in several markets across the United States. My expertise in utilizing cable television continues to grow and develop.

If you’re interested in contacting me regarding cable television advertising or other advertising and marketing issues, please click here or on any of the contact links on this website.

Cable Television Advertising

thundercow — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:50:22 +0000

If you’re considering advertising on television in your local market you’re probably going to check out cable. When you talk to the sales person beware of “packages”. I sold local cable television advertising for ten years and have been buying it for eight years as the owner of Frink Inc. Advertising. I’m a cable television advertising advocate. With that being said I can tell you that the primary motivation for the local cable operator to sell packages is to unload inventory for which there is little demand. The packages are designed to entice you with incredibly low spot rates. The usual technique is to group various networks together and offer them on a Monday-Sunday 6am – 12midnight basis. Recently I saw a cable package billed as targeting men. It grouped nine networks together including National Geographic, Sci-Fi, FX, and TNT among others and offered them on M-F 6am-6pm basis. M-F 6am-6pm which means no spots will run in primetime and no spots will run on the weekend when most of daytime viewing occurs. The spots were $3 each. Wow what a deal right? Not really. How many men watch the Sci-Fi channel or FX at 9 am on Tuesday morning? Sports packages are also popular. College football and basketball packages that might include hundreds of games are merchandised with average spot rates of $50 to $75. These are usually bad deals because they include dozens of Division II games that only girlfriends and relatives will be watching. You don’t need or want to buy a package to make a good cable buy.

How to make a good Cable buy:

1. Clearly define your target prospects

2. Identify what they’re watching

3. Know the cable vendor’s pressure points.

With a little thought you can probably handle #1 on your own. A good cable sales representative might be able to help you with #2. A good sales rep. isn’t going to help you with #3. Your best bet is to seek the advice of an independent advertising professional. A good one will save you time and money.