Media account for 39% of sales that happen within three months of a campaign finishing, according to new research from GroupM, commissioned by Thinkbox, with TV responsible for more of those sales than any other communication channel.
The study, which looked at the effects different media channels have on driving consumer response, found that TV advertising was responsible for 33% of media-driven sales.
By comparison, paid-for online search created 22%, online display 12%, affiliates 10%, print 8%, direct mail 8%, radio 3% and outdoor 1%.
TV advertising was also found to dominate longer term response.
Half of all media-driven responses happen 3-24 months post-campaign, with brand response TV advertising (the more brand-orientated TV usually aired during peak airtime) responsible for 52% of the impact media has in the long-term.
TV advertising was 40% more efficient at driving long term response per pound than outdoor and print, and 180% more efficient than online display.
In addition to this GroupM found that TV is responsible for driving 44% of all media driven interactions for brands on Facebook, such as likes and comments, with the effect of TV on Facebook two-fold.
Exposure to TV advertising prompts consumers to directly engage with Facebook, as well as driving significant volumes of sales. After purchase, consumers also go on to engage with Facebook.
[advert position=”left”]
“This research gives us something we’ve never had before: a comprehensive understanding of the wide-ranging effects advertising has,” said Matt Hill, research and planning director at Thinkbox.
“What’s clear from GroupM’s work is that TV advertising triggers response like nothing else; it delivers both long term brand building and short to medium term sales. It has also revealed the hidden effects TV advertising has on other media and how they work together.”
Because of its reach and scale, TV advertising was also found to generate a cost efficient level of response at higher levels of spend than any other media.
GroupM found that spend on TV advertising can be 2.7 times higher than online channels before there is a significant decrease in efficiency, 2.5 times higher than print and 2.8 times higher than radio.
Additionally, GroupM discovered that approximately 80% of total response was generated after a viewer had seen an ad for the first or second time, implying that direct response campaigns should maximise reach and minimise the number of times the same person is exposed to an ad more than twice.
This goes against how the majority of direct response TV airtime is conventionally bought, which has been mostly daytime-only campaigns that tend to perform better for frequency than reach.
