Even in the PVR Age, Television Advertising Can Still Inspire

I’ll admit it, while watching my beloved HTGAWM last night; I actually rewound a commercial because it looked so interesting. It was an IKEA commercial, so not just your run of the mill television advert. For years now, IKEA, in my view, has been a frontrunner in entertaining and compelling marketing, whether done via traditional or digital platforms.

I wasn’t able to find the specific television commercial I saw last night online, it’s probably too new, but the IKEA YouTube channel features many of the greats, with their “Let’s Relax” being the most recent campaign.

Television advertising has taken a real hit in recent years with the advent of the PVR and “on demand” type of television viewing. Not to mention that television advertising has never really been an economical endeavour. Now that businesses can set their own daily budgets with online advertising, I’m sure the networks have had to make some significant changes to the way they position and price their ad spots. Superbowl aside, of course.

I think today, if a client wanted to wade into the world of TV, I would recommend the 10- or 15-second closed captioning spots to start, and see what kind of response they get from that. In reality, those are the spots that are mostly seen in their entirety, because they run right before the show starts again. You know, that point when you realize you’ve fast-forwarded into the show by a few seconds, so you have to rewind? That’s the spot you see, “Closed Captioning for this program is brought to you by…..”

What are your thoughts about marketing on television? Have you ever included it as part of your marketing strategy? If you have something eye-catching or locally-inspired, the PVR-ers of the world might notice it, even in high speed, and rewind to check it out…it happens to the best of us!

Connect with us for inspiration on every aspect of your business marketing strategy.

View my profile, connect with me on LinkedIn or add me on Google+.