1) TV creative does not need to be expensive or sophisticated. Not having much of a budget isn’t a problem but not having much of an idea is; that’s why it is all in the briefing. The creative and execution of any TV campaign stems from knowing who you need to reach, and how your brand should be perceived, and without these fundamental questions answered the campaign could be costly. If you have conducted research or have focus group feedback, then evaluate your findings. Always remember to keep your creative engaging and identify your target audience in order to create memorable creative and keep your call to action simple and easy to understand. There are a number of bingo operators that spend very little on their commercials and still achieve cut through by being clever in pre-planning. Generous bonuses will always stand out over the competition or perhaps you may want to consider free gifts instead?
2) Make the most of your budget no matter how small. We recommend that introductory media should be from £50k for bingo advertisers and anything from £100k for Casino and Live Betting advertisers. Remember that advertising – particularly for Casino – is subject to Ofcom regulation which restricts TV advertising until after the watershed, so for example Casino adverts will be aired post 9pm in peak TV times. It is also important to remember that the cost of buying in peak TV times is about three times more expensive than in the daytime, when bingo advertisers are allowed to advertise.
3) Media schedules should drive frequency across a number of smaller stations buying numerous spots. Reach (to ensure that you are reaching enough of the right people) and frequency (every time an ad is seen it’s an opportunity to play) are important aspects of any plan and are used to analyze alternative media schedules as media buying should always be as cost effective as possible and within Ofcom constraints. It is commonly known that the cheapest stations and programmes drive better ROI than the larger more well-known channels.
4) If you are testing TV for the first time, then it’s important that a minimum of three weeks across all days is factored in to the scheduled in order to fully understand the effects of the TV campaign. This also provides a reasonable amount of time for the campaign to bed in so that meaningful insights can be gathered post-campaign for optimization moving forward. Additionally this will enable you to compare the results from different times of the day and days of the week.
5) Traditional media can deliver great results if executed well and TV should form part of an integrated marketing and media campaign for it to be successful. PPC should be optimised in order to reflect the TV activity and campaign creative. Ensure that the PPC team aligns all creative messaging with that of the TV ad, and that all marketers involved are fully briefed. Remember that all media activity around the times of the ad spots should be maximized.
6) Data analysis should be carried out post-campaign in order to understand which spots are driving what response. The target audience can be fully examined from customer data and conversion to depositors and this is measured to help forecast subsequent campaigns and success rates. At MC&C we have an in-house reporting system called ART which enables us to match up the responses (registrations) with ad spots. We then use this invaluable data to look at and analyse the CPR per channel, day of week, time of day etc.
7) Always implement a test and learn strategy in order to enhance and improve on performance when planning future campaigns. A test and learn option could potentially be the deciding factor when it comes to increasing budgets and spend on future TV campaigns. Media budgets can be grown from this point once the appropriate metrics are put in place. All clients have differing KPIs and objectives along with targets, demographics, conversion rates, offers and software. The list goes on. So whilst the process of planning the campaign is the same, the intricacies of a TV campaign will vary from client to client.
