This is going to sound obvious but it isn’t true of all advertising platforms. TV offers a guaranteed audience.
When running a digital marketing campaign you might set the campaign to run with a budget in the hope that your ad will reach an audience that just doesn’t turn up. Whereas when you invest in reaching 2 million views on TV, that’s exactly what you’ll get.
In contrast to other advertising platforms, you’re not simply running a campaign and hoping that it achieves visibility. When planning a TV campaign you don’t need to live in in the land of hope. There is no crossing your fingers and praying to the advertising gods that you will reach a meaningful audience size. You will reach the intended audience numbers.
Let’s compare TV to pay per click as the most obvious example of the difference between reach and ambition. It’s all well and good targeting the most detailed buyer profile but if your ads aren’t delivered all you’re left with is wasted effort and a meaningless report.
Alternatively, if you’re still advertising in print, you can’t guarantee that the number of people you were hoping to see your ad will actually read the newspaper or magazine. You might plaster your message across a billboard but maybe people aren’t looking up
Video ads run online and across social will only reach the targeted audience if that audience is available. There’s also the risk that when they do turn up, they will click the skip button and only view the first few seconds, unlike a TV ad, which plays in full.
That’s one of the challenges with a niche targeted campaign that drills down to the most detailed buyer profile. That perfect person doesn’t necessarily exist and if they don’t exist they can’t view your creative.
Or maybe they do exist but they were watching Love Island or Bake off on the box instead of doom scrolling.