Digital TV To Enjoy Strong Advertising Push
Digital television is preparing for a seven year marketing push, with a new advertising campaign launched on Monday urging customers to buy digital TV’s and set-top boxes in the upcoming Christmas season.
The multimedia campaign will be shown in the areas where the switchover will start, covering Cumbria and southern Scotland, with the region due to switch to digital in 2008.
A follow up of the marketing push will be coordinated by non profit organisation Digital TV. The campaign will then be rolled out as the switchover date for other areas of the country draws in, with a vast multimedia marketing push being seen between 2008 and 2012, according to a report this morning in the Media Guardian.
Commenting on the plans, Ford Ennals chief executive of Digital UK said: “This is the first phase of a seven-year campaign to inform and educate people about the digital switchover. We are working with local retailers and relevant organisations to ensure the shops are ready and able to deal with customer enquiries.”
Recent research published by Ofcom earlier this year revealed that less that a third of UK consumers have heard of the term “digital switchover” with a significant proportion not knowing where to turn to for advice (see UK Public Unaware Of Impending Digital Switchover).
This lack of knowledge is mirrored within the television industry, with a study from the London Business School and Video Networks claiming that more than 50% of television industry executives feel that the government is not doing enough to educate and communicate with consumers about the digital switchover (see TV Executives Call For Clear Switchover Strategy).
According to Ofcom, however, currently 63% of homes already have digital, with an additional 200,000 households upgrading every month. However, according to Ofcom, it is estimated that around 10% of UK homes will be reluctant to make the switch for a variety of reasons.
However, for those who haven’t yet made the switch Ofcom has revealed that late adopters of digital technology will have to pay a collective sum of up to £572 million in order to prepare themselves for the impending digital switchover (see Consumer Cost Of Digital Switchover To Hit £572 Million).
The cost to the average household is shown to be around £137 to ensure that they have all the correct equipment to meet the Government’s proposed switchover deadline of between 2008 and 2012. This estimate is based on a per-household average of two television sets and one VCR and assumes that consumers opt for the cheapest available technology, Freeview.
Digital UK www.digitaluk.co.uk