Advertisers Should Learn TV Owners’ Inventory For Best Deals, Says Billetts

Television advertisers that wish to target a broad audience are liable to be left with the least desirable timeslots and more downmarket audiences, according to new research. A new study by the Billett Consultancy, shows advertisers who target specific audience groups, such as 16-34 year olds, are receiving more favourable placement in the ad break environment, as a result of media owners’ inventory management techniques.

In Television 2000: Inventory Management And Agency Deals Billetts demonstrates how the media owner is very often controlling both the pot of discount and the quality of spots they are trading. The report says that it is key for advertisers to understand how the price/quality trade off works in order to gain the best competitive advantage in buying television airtime. The key to this, says Billetts, is to understand how the media owners’ complex inventory management systems are used to schedule advertisers in different slots.

As an example, Billetts claims that whilst the television viewing of Housewives and ABC1 Adults is very similar, the schedule of spots provided by the TV contractors will be very different. The result of this is that different audiences are awarded different amounts of access to different degrees of quality space.

A further example from the report claims that an advertiser buying the same amount of late peak, for 16-34 Men or Adults, will get different amounts of centre break coverage – 76% and 60% respectively for these audiences.

“The Inventory Management systems have become so focussed on delivering targeted schedules, that the stable supporter of the medium, trying to reach large numbers of broad target audiences, now gets saddled with an older, down market targeted schedule – the audiences others have left behind,” says chairman John Billett.

Billetts Consultancy: 0171 734 3455