Why you shouldn′t (again) say that TV is dead?

Let′s start with a couple of questions to all of the digital marketing gurus out there, who like to start their speeches with a famous ?tv is dead“ mantra. How comes that:

• When you google best digital marketing campaigns, you don′t get some perfectly executed SEM, attribution-based, laser- focused targeting with maximized sales conversion examples, but instead, you get the campaigns featuring, guess what...tv ads?!
• When you check the reference work of the best marketing agencies today, that often stand for "fully digital", you get the same..tv ads?!!

Now, before somebody starts explaining me the difference between meaningful & engaging video content that drives traffic and helps conversion (by conversion is usually considered a click to a cool microsite that raises some kind of awareness) and ?old school“ tv commercials that ?only“ get "some“ reach and ?interrupt“ people that are not really interested, think about answering the following:

• Traffic, engagement and social sentiment sure sound cooler than "obsolete" metrics like TRPs, frequency and reach, but ask client′s CSO if he really cares for any of those? (in other words- if you′re on a company side, you′re still just a spender, a leach on the back of every honest company salesman, sorry!)
• When was the last time you saw a 5 min. you tube video without being served a bumper ad, pre-roll ad, or what ever is a new format of interrupting the video?

Makes you wanna turn on good old tv and watch a 143. re-run of ?Rocky“ that just passed the 15. minute (with only 5 min of commercial time in a full 2 hours). Pure analog pleasure. And I did it. And not once.

I guess what I′m trying to say is, even if tv is on the ropes and fighting for a breath (wonder where I got that reference from ?), the very people from the marketing industry who are claiming that, didn′t change much their own approach to the marketing communication: they find a trend (basically whatever is the latest social justice warriors agenda these days, that competition still didn′t use), brainstorm in the office (on Saturday, it′s quieter), do some reverse engineering to see how it can fit the client, and bang! We have a new tv ad! Ups, new video content strategy. In other words, if tv is gone, old campaign- making mindset is certainly still with us.

Today′s big marketing campaigns often don′t look so different from the "Mad Man" Era advertising concepts, only Don Draper joined an NGO, quit smoking, drinking, and started working from home.

So, video is a new black- whatever you want to do content wise, make a video: you wanna say happy birthday on a Facebook, make a video! You′re selling an old fridge? Hell, why not doing a 360° video of a fridge including the inside look also?!

Well guess what- linear tv is one very, very, long video..that works without play button. And it goes on, and on... pure medi(a)tation.

Which brings me to my final thought- imagine for a second that tv is invented today, 2019. So, you got only one channel, that′s it. Is it so inconceivable that your favorite target group member, his/her majesty millennial, could actually like it?

Ron, 29, student, gender unspecified:

?Hey, have you checked out that new thing, tv or something? It′s like, endless video content man... and the best thing is, you don′t have to choose nothing, you just watch whatever it′s on, whenever you tune in! Some really random sh.., man!"