How Effective Is TV Advertising in 2024?

To reach mass audiences and large groups, you may want to take advantage of using television advertisements to promote your products and services. According to a survey on TV ownership, 27.3 million households in the UK own a TV set.

However, TV viewings have dropped across the board in comparison to the pre-internet era. In the digital world we live in today, TV advertising campaigns compete for coverage with digital advertising, OOH and DOOH advertising, transit media, newspaper, radio, podcast ads, and more.

This begs the question, just how effective is TV advertising today? We take a closer look at TV advertising campaigns and evaluate how effective they are in 2024. 

Let’s start by looking at ways TV advertising is still effective in 2024.

Ways TV Advertising Is Effective in 2024

High Reach

A big part of the decline in TV viewership is due to the rise of streaming platforms where viewers can watch on-demand TV and films, on Netflix, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Apple TV. 

Nevertheless, in the week of 14-20th March 2022, 5.5 million viewers tuned into Coronation Street, with 716,000 of those watching on ITV Hub catchup. Thereby, despite comparative falls in viewership, you are still able to achieve high levels of reach through TV advertising campaigns.

Capture Your Audience’s Attention with TV advertising

Getting your television commercials seen by a large mass audience does not mean you have done a good job of captivating your viewers’ attention and persuading them about your brand or product. The most effective television advertising campaigns are creative and have a theme that makes an impact. 

It’s simple, audiences won’t part with their money and purchase products or services if your advertisements are lacklustre and unimaginative. So, getting your creative juices flowing in the ideas phase is an important aspect of successful TV advertising campaigns! Get it right, and your audience will feel inspired to go and purchase your products.

The Successful Cadbury Drumming Gorilla TV Advertisement

An example of an evergreen creative TV advertisement that enjoyed great success and captured audiences’ attention was the Cadbury Drumming Gorilla ad. First released in 2007, the Cadbury gorilla drumming along to the chorus of ‘In the Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins with poise played its part in Cadbury (then ‘Cadbury Schweppes’) reporting a 5% growth in revenue in that year.

TV Advertisements Are Perfect for Above the Line Campaign Strategies

Are you looking to adopt above the line advertising strategies to help you appeal to the masses? If so, running television advertisements are still effective at connecting with larger audiences.

Are you going for a ‘through the line’ campaign strategy whereby you combine above the line with below the line more targeted advertisements? Television advertisements will also serve as a vital ingredient in your mixed approach to advertising. 

Build brand awareness

Looking to construct plenty of buzz around your product and raise brand awareness? As we have already alluded to, in 2024 you are still able to reach a large number of people through TV commercials. Therefore, if it is generally building brand awareness you are after, television advertising may work. 

The Drawbacks of TV Advertising Campaigns in 2024 

There are drawbacks and cons to running television advertising campaigns today, here we will explore a few of them. 

The Difficulty of Connecting With More Specific Target Audiences with TV Advertising

Do you want to target a smaller specific audience? If so, you will find television campaigns far too generic and not adequately focused on your target audience. 

The advantage for advertisers and brands of using our shadowfencing add-on feature in taxi campaigns is that it uses a mobile geofence to target on-street audiences in close proximity to the moving vehicle and provides you with improved granular targeting. 

In this way, shadowfencing enables us to bridge the gap between digital advertising and Out-of-Home and allows your on-vehicle ads to be displayed on the mobile and apps of your target audiences. 

Drovo’s on-vehicle digital screen campaigns are run using programmatic advertising technology which slashes setup times that you experience in traditional Out-of-Home campaigns, such as the time it takes for a labourer to put up a printed billboard. With the programmatic technology, your screen ads will go up almost instantly.

Does working with the largest UK carbon-neutral committed media fleet to connect with street audiences in campaigns interest you?

High Reach for TV Commercials Doesn’t Necessarily Lead to More Sales Conversions

Simply because you manage to get a lot of people watching your TV ads won’t necessarily lead to an increase in your customer base or sales figures.

Have you Gained a prime time TV advertising slot on a mainstream television channel? Unless your ad is engaging, relatable, and compelling for viewers, you most likely won’t see a rise in audience engagement or sales conversions. 

Digital Advertising Has Taken Over 

Another con of television advertising is that digital advertising has taken its place as the advertising media format with the highest reach. In short, television viewing figures have tumbled as viewers have moved online.

The graph below from Statista reflects the shift from TV advertising to Digital Out-of-Home advertising spending. In 2022, the growth in TV advertising spending in the UK was -1.40%, compared to +30% in DOOH.  

At Drovo, we have recognised that the OOH sector needs to integrate digital advertising methods into outdoor campaigns, and our shadowfencing technology for your taxi advertising campaigns enables you to also connect with on-street audiences on a digital level. 

Lack of Street-level Exposure

People’s attention spans are short these days, realistically not many of us have the patience to sit through watching a long television advertisement while out and about. 

At Drovo, we have the UK’s largest street-level audience, and our on-vehicle ads are at the eye level of motorists, commuters on public transportation (e.g. buses), cyclists, and pedestrians. 

The Inability to Move with Audiences

Don’t underestimate the benefits of being able to move with your audience! Transit media campaigns allow you to do just that, whereas TV commercials do not.  

The Expense of TV Advertising

Television commercials are usually expensive to run, and this is an issue if you have a tighter budget. Running a 30-second ad on primetime TV can cost as much as £34,000. 

You must therefore weigh up the costs of running TV advertisements and whether they will reliably provide you with a return on investment. 

You now should have a better idea of just how effective TV advertisement campaigns are today.