As the TV industry escalates its campaign to promote the value of broadcast television, a panel of experts said the best results can often be achieved when TV and digital work in collaboration rather than against each other.
In an entertaining Media Summit panel discussion on the collision of digital and TV, Network Ten executive GM of Melbourne Russel Howcroft and Nine sales boss Michael Stephenson spruiked the value of TV advertising in a not so thinly veiled dig at digital.
“TV remains the most effective tool for advertising when measured on an ROI basis,” Howcroft said, adding that TV is now available anywhere, anytime on a multitude of screens. Ten's catch up service TenPlay has receive 2.5 million downloads, while 9Now has had 1.1 million people sign up to it.
“On broadcast TV's digital platforms, you cannot fast forward the ads. You cannot block them or click after a few seconds. Modern broadcast TV remains respectful of the advertiser in its vital role of building client's businesses.”
Stephenson said that both TV and digital are important, but the pendulum had swung too far towards digital media, in part due to “the romancing that some channels have made to advertisers and agencies”.
Facebook head of agency sales Ellie Rogers said that the shift to mobile has already happened and marketers need to catch up.
She pointed out that TV broadcasters are among the best examples of companies using Facebook for marketing and that TV channels are even running content on Facebook first, such as Seven's X-Factor and SBS show The Family Law.
“We're actually playing really well together and you guys are really utilising Facebook well as a broadcaster," she said. "We need to get over the fact that mobile video is a thing happening, and we need to work out how it sits as part of the broadcast, not instead of TV but how the two platforms work better together,” she added.
Mitch Waters, managing director of AOL Australia and New Zealand, views TV not as the platform, rather the artform of storytelling.
“It's how you use the technology to talk to each different device and have that scaled across both... we would agree that traditional media and digital players should collaborate,” he added.
MCN digital partnerships director Suzie Cardwell agreed that collaboration between “the two worlds” of TV and digital is key.
Full coverage of the discussion will appear in the next print issue of AdNews.
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