At last week’s ‘Campaign TV Advertising Summit’ I was honoured to join a lively panel to discuss ‘The power of TV in times of disruption’.
Representing the buying side, I was joined by Manning Gottlieb’s Emma Withington, from the planning side Channel 4’s Clare Peters and from the sales side one of our client’s, Chris Byrne from Lidl.
The key points of discussion were around how TV provided unity and relief during lockdown, how broadcasters and brands changed their tone of programming and advertising in response to the pandemic, and finally how the pandemic has changed the TV market and our hopes for the future.
With viewpoints from four different perspectives (well done Campaign), it was perhaps surprising how much we found ourselves agreeing with each other. Undoubtedly the increase in viewing can be attributed to a workforce adjusting to the home office, but the degree to which TV provided not only unity but support for people, points to the continuing power of the medium as a force for good. This support was achieved by both the broadcasters and the advertisers; with programming strands like Channel 4’s ‘Lockdown Academy’, ITV’s work with Young Minds & Mind for ‘Britain Get Talking’ or Lidl’s partnership with the NSPCC are all prime examples.
From a market impact perspective, the broadcasters move to offer greater flexibility through reducing Advanced Booking Deadlines has proved popular with advertisers. Chris made some very salient points on how this flexibility has helped Lidl to pivot and get new messages on TV that may not have been possible previously. My big hope for the (not too distant) future, is that the collaboration between the broadcasters we have seen in recent years, and the united front behind ‘the power of TV’, will turbo charge into measurement. With the continued growth on ITV Hub, All4 and Sky On Demand, it needs to. CFlight looks like the unified solution to deliver this, offering a deduplicated measurement for reach and frequency across TV and BVOD… we just want it to land as quickly as possible please.
