Trends for 2009: #15. TV will do "okay" this year.

Doing "okay" is like someone saying you are "nice". It doesn't really stand out.

As reported in the Guardian, a Deloitte study suggests that the Recession could be "good news" for TV. Why? Well, in a recession people tend to stay home more and consequently watch TV.

UK television viewing hours were already rising in the second half of 2008 and are expected to rise another 30 minutes per week per viewer in 2009, according to the report from the technology, media and telecommunications practice at Deloitte.

Mind you, to counter that point, with the forecast massive reduction in advertising budgets TV advertising revenues will get hammered. eMarketer says that most researchers predicting a 5% or greater decline in spending.

On top of that, with the fragmentation of TV audiences away from the big networks, the supply of options has gone way up, and the demand for advertising time on the big networks has come way down. The result? Their advertising revenues will probably suffer more than most. Consequently they are looking at options to cut their costs - such as shutting stations.

What's a Marketer to do in 2009? This set of answers will sound remarkably similar to yesterday's!

• Look carefully at the price and performance of all media - this includes the dying print world, the new interactive world, and everything in between. You never know ... you might find that for your particular product or service a newspaper ad still outperforms an interactive campaign. But, more than likely, that just means that you aren't yet doing the right things with your interactive campaign.
  
• Ensure your TV advertising is effective. While this may sound obvious ... actually go out and do some research to ensure that your ads have recall, and that the message in them is being understood.
  
• Produce TV-like commercials specifically for the web (you will also find this one in my Trend about Interactive Advertising): In the "old days" you might have produced a TV commercial and then posted it to the web. That won't do any longer. Now it is important to shoot TV commercials specifically for the web. How are they different? First off they are typically lower video quality. They also might be shorter. In TV-land, the viewer must sit in front of your ad for 30 seconds. On the web, they will leave you more quickly. On the other hand ... your ad may be several minutes long. On the web you can produce an "advertising epic" - so long as it is truly captivating. People will gladly watch your entertainment, and maybe even forward it off to friends, and you won't have to shell out for a bunch of TV air time. A big way to make your online ads different is to allow a viewer to interact with the commercial. Perhaps the viewer should be able to select characters in the ad, then choose various changes to your plot line.

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next marketing trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo to discuss this further.