Problem 5: Shared vs. solo experiences
Get your mind out of the gutter. This is serious. The communal nature of television means it is often a shared experience, as opposed to the singular consumption model of the internet. You often watch TV in groups, but when is the last time you sat at a computer in a group to share the experience? You usually just fire off an email. The information is shared, but at disparate moments.
The shared aspect of television creates a communal bond with the viewers. Appointment television, like sporting events, create high emotional context and group-think imprinting, as opposed to individualistic consumption (due to the highly euphoric limbic nature of consumption). And even though the actual consumption of television can be singular (you may watch television alone at night) the shared aspects of key water-cooler programs ("Lost," "American Idol," etc.) heighten the emotional impact during consumption. Even though you are alone, the consumption is being shared with like-minded individuals. Texts, calls and IMs of "Did you just see that?!" happen in this medium, but are largely absent on the internet. The IM is the conduit of that message, not the emotional messenger.
Problem 6: The cost and the tipping point
I often hear the argument about the high cost of television advertising in comparison to online. I hear it, but that doesn't mean it's a valid statement or I agree with it for branding. It is a factual statement: "A television commercial costs more to produce than a banner." Television is more expensive -- vastly so -- on the production end. However, it has some unique advantages over online.
Once a commercial is produced, it takes fewer resources to scale it for mass reach. It can be tested locally and, if it gains relevance, expanded nationally with increased money and media planning. The traffic requirements alone make online scaling an often arduous process, unless you are scaling within individual properties, which often limits the market and opportunity. Most brands cannot afford television, and those that can't usually adapt their marketing process over the years with guerilla PR efforts and word of mouth. Those brands do the best job utilizing online and UGC practices for branding because they were never reliant on the emotional impact of television to begin with.
The problem for most companies that can afford TV advertising is that they often approach the two media the same way. How many 15-second TV spots just get adapted for pre- and mid-roll within video content? Why? Because it's easy.
These brands also fail when they spend massive amounts on use banners, believing that if they invest the dollars, the cost advantages of online and the millions of impressions will be cumulative. Nothing could be further from the truth. The temporary nature of online advertising means it dissipates quickly, and so you are filling a bucket with a leaky bottom.
There is a point at which the combination of the impact made by the creative and the saturation of that advertising is either going to reach a tipping point or not. (I can't believe I just used that phrase. Damn you Malcolm Gladwell!) In some cases, no amount of online advertising will achieve a tipping point, for it is transient in nature. In time, the closer the impression count, the more impact. It is a balancing act to find the impression over time that has the most impact. With all the previously mentioned issues, it is much harder to create an emotional resonance leading to positive brand recall by only using online, therefore making it more difficult to create buzz that breaks through.
Conclusion
What leads us all to the brands we use -- that first brand touch -- is often the powerful, emotionally-resonating force that keeps us with that brand, and that emotive force is often television. Television has an advantage when imprinting that first brand meme. For online advertising, including UGC, leveraging past assets of existing brand resonance with consumers is much more efficient and productive than trying to gain brand relevance around a new concept or idea. Brands not on TV have long found ways to get their product and message into consumers' hands by using guerilla methods. How are you going to figure out how to use the branding your television has been imparting on consumers using online? And what if you don't do any television? Can you still leverage stuff that has been sitting in your brand attic?
Next week I tackle what McDonalds, Klondike and Burger King are doing, and why they have an advantage.
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Sean X Cummings is a marketing specialist.
