Why Tech Giants Rely on TV Advertising Over Their Beloved Digital
If you’ve been paying attention to the world of advertising for the past decade or so, you might have the impression that digital is where all the action is. In terms of buzz and trend fixation, that’s true. But when it comes to driving returns, the tried, true, and comparatively unsexy realm of television advertising still can’t be beat.
The irony is that monolithic tech companies understand this far better than brands from other industries. Many of them have made their billions in digital advertising—yet they still recognize that TV can bring them what digital can’t. The proof? Their budgets.
The term “company” doesn’t quite do justice to Google’s footprint. Without online advertising, Google would not exist; that’s where the vast majority of their revenue has always come from. Paid search isn’t shiny or new, but it still brings in the billions for Google.
Yet the tech giant has increasingly turned to TV to win over new customers. Google more than doubled its TV commercial budget during the 2016 holiday quarter alone, to the tune of $109.8 million in ad buys to promote its Pixel mobile device. Google shelled out a further $5 million for a single 30-second spot in early 2017 to debut its Google Home AI assistant.
Other tech companies, such as Amazon, Netflix, Uber and Facebook, are also plunging hundreds of millions into TV commercials. In fact, these digital pioneers have some of the largest TV advertising budgets among all brands. In markets like the UK, the rankings of TV budgets are dominated by these companies, putting them in the top spots across all brand categories.
Read the full article on the Observer.
