Social Television Flexes its Engagement Muscle  

It’s now an indisputable fact that television, viewers and social media are completely intertwined, and the data is impressive. In a recent Social TV Landscape study by the CAB, we can see just how effective TV networks and their programming are on engaging and compelling viewers to voice their opinions. 

• Since 2012, TV Tweets have grown by 39%, totaling nearly 3 billion Tweets.
• Sports Shows, Family & Drama Programming have Experienced the Greatest Growth in Tweets between 2012 and 2014.
  
• Sports programming accounted for the majority of Tweets in 2013 and 2014

It’s clear from the this landscape review that event programming is a huge driver of viewer Tweets. Events such as the Super Bowl, the World Cup and Presidential debates are super-catalysts for opinion Tweeting and venting. 

From an advertiser's point of view, it is interesting to see that 24% of all Tweets in 2014 occurred during Daytime TV programming, far more than any other daypart. Quite the testament to just how engaged viewers are with their programming and their eagerness to share opinions and comments with the world. 

Get all the data here in the full article. 

tandemROI is a cross-channel advertising and marketing agency located in Tampa, FL.

Gaining Control, Saving Money, and the Horror of Losing ESPN during March Madness!

While talk of cord cutters, aka consumers cancelling their cable TV, is on the rise, the reality may not match the current hype. In fact, the process of actually getting out of cable was quite the learning experience. I’ve done it recently, and I've laid out my consumer experience below.  

But first, it is a fact: consumers are migrating over to streaming services such as Roku, Amazon and Apple. And some are cancelling their cable service in exchange for an entirely different viewing experience, which with time, is quite liberating.  Advertisers and marketers will face a new set of acquisition decisions as this migration gains momentum. 

But let’s talk about actual cord cutting. If you are contemplating it, read on, as it can be a labyrinth of decisions, follow ups, tech issues and behavior adjustments. But, if you can dare to go where few go, you will discover a sense of freedom and control you didn’t know possible.

Let me try to encapsulate the process:

Step One: head over to Best Buy, Amazon or any number of retailers and select your streaming device. This could be a Roku, Chromecast, an Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, etc. Or, buy a smart TV if you are in the market.

Step One and a Half: don’t forget to pick up a digital tuner, aka rabbit ears, so you can pick up your local stations. Yes, rabbit ears.

Step Two: compete the set up of your streaming device with your TV. This involves various accounts being set up, both online and through your TV. However, for the most part, there is no charge for using the streaming devices once you buy them.

Step Three: confirm your streaming service is working, and tune in your digital tuner for local stations. This requires another set up through your TV to actually program the tuner to pick up these stations.

Step Four: select the streaming channels you like. The most well known are Netflix, HuluPlus, Amazon, HBO Go and others. Of course, these cost money, but a few offer free trials. Beyond these, there are literally thousands of free streaming channels, many catering to just about any niche you can think of.  A number of cable networks stream their content for free, including History, H2, Smithsonian, AE, Fox, CBS, ABC and more. Many news outlets also provide free content. 

Step Four and a Half: set up accounts with paid streaming channels such as Hulu and Netflix. Think Netflix for movies, HuluPlus for recent TV shows.  

Step Five: call cable company and cancel your service, but only after you know for sure your streaming system is working. Be prepared to justify, explain and then question complex pricing systems if you are at all bundled. For example, I was bundled with TV, Internet and Home Security. By cancelling TV, my Internet rate actually went up. This was due to unbundling supposedly.

Step Six: wait for your cable to be cut off. Then check your other bundled services for service outage. It seems it can be difficult for cable companies to just disconnect cable TV. In true fashion, Internet was cut, but Home Security stayed up, so it was trip number two to come out and reconnect Internet. 

Step Seven, if necessary: call cable provider to come back out and reconnect Internet service.

Step Eight: adjust your thinking. Streaming TV gives you pure on demand, watch what you like when you feel like it control. This takes some time to adjust in your mind. Give it two weeks. From there, your entire viewing experience improves for the better. Services such as HuluPlus, and many of the actual streaming networks include a few short ads. Netflix does not. While ads are ads and good for marketers, I found the length of the breaks to be so short as to not be intrusive. 

Step Nine: prepare yourself for no ESPN. ESPN and a few other mainline cable networks require you to enter your cable system provider before you can watch their content streamed through your TV or other devices. This one caught me off guard. Thank goodness for the new Sling TV. This is a paid service, about $20/month, which carries ESPN, TNT, TBS and others. It got me through March Madness, then I cancelled it.

Final step: enjoy being out from under the thumb of cable TV provider pricing, as well as substantial savings on an annual basis. I estimate about $1100 annual savings. Even better, you now you can watch the content you like, as you like, with total control over your schedule. 

tandemROI is a cross-channel advertising and marketing agency located in Tampa, FL.

Brands Vie for Shorty Awards

The unbridled, explosive growth and use of video in social media has many major brands diving headlong into using short video content (shorties) to engage consumers. Outlets such as Vine, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and others provide an incredibly efficient and powerful way to reach a targeted audience. 

Have you considered short video content for your brand? If not, it's time to review your assets and see what you can do. 

Check out these Shorty Award Finalists for inspiration! 

Brands Have Come a Long Way, Baby

You know the brands. And many you probably interact with weekly, or perhaps even daily. Companies like VISA, Gap, HBO, Viagra, iPhone and more. But like every major brand, they started out small and with a specific stated purpose. 

Take a look at this great little (and quick) video retrospective piece from Adweek, which reminds us all that no matter how big you get, how influential you are, we all come from somewhere. 

Watch the video here. 

The Largest Internet Brands Rely on TV for Growth

Today we hear more and more that an increasing percentage of traditional brand marketing budgets are being shifted to online advertising in a proverbial Holy Grail search for low cost customer and revenue acquisition.  And that is happening.

But, you might be surprised to learn that those who perhaps know the most about online marketing, the Internet pure-plays themselves, are following an entirely different route to growth. Television.

A recent CAB (Cable Television Advertising Bureau) whitepaper illustrates some powerful dynamics happening among the largest, best known Internet brands, or pure plays as they are known. In “What’s Driving Digital”, we see a strong case for television not just driving traffic, but for driving revenue growth. Even better, this revenue growth is being realized in the first year on television.
Let’s take a look at some of these impressive metrics:

• Pure-play Internet brands (companies such as TripAdvisor, Ancestry.com, LegalZoom.com) whose businesses are solely reliant on Internet traffic to drive revenue, spent over 4 billion dollars on TV advertising in 2013 alone.
• Over the past five years, TV investment by pure-play Internet brands has increased over a third (with Cable garnering over 70% of those of dollars).
  
• In an analysis of 75 pure-play Internet advertisers, 85% of them showed a direct relationship between TV spend and increased website traffic. Conversely, as spend went down, so did site traffic.
  
And it gets even better. We’ve known for a while now that TV can and does drive website traffic. But does it convert? Does that ad spend equate to revenues? The answer is absolutely. An analysis of TV spend vs. Revenues reveals that:


• Across twelve different product categories, TV generated increased revenue from the first year on-air at an 11:1 ratio, that is $11 in revenues for each $1 spent.
• Across six major Internet brand companies, TV increases revenues at a pace of $25 in revenue for each $1 in ad spend.

So why are companies whose brands were built through the Internet shifting their ad budgets to TV is such a rapid fashion? The answer is simple. No other marketing channel works harder on a contribution basis than television. Whether it’s traffic, leads or revenues, TV is the largest driver in scaling a business.

As noted in Deloitte’s “State of Media Democracy” report, 64% of web respondents stated they visited a site after seeing a TV ad. In contrast, 49% responded as a result of an online ad and 12% as a result of a mobile ad.

It’s clear that when it comes to the inevitable question of how do I scale my company online, TV has been and will continue to be one of the soundest advertising investments you can make.

You can view the entire CAB article here.

tandemROI is a multi-platform marketing agency based in Tampa, FL.