Television Still Leads in Product Awareness

Spots N Dots The Daily News Of TV Sales August 23, 2017 TELEVISION STILL LEADS IN PRODUCT AWARENESS STATION WEBSITES GETTING MENTIONS TOO The purchase funnel is a consumer marketing model developed by advertising guru E. St. Elmo Lewis which says a series of elements—including awareness, interest, consideration, and purchase —are factors in a buying decision. Flash forward 119-years after Lewis came up with his theory and the TVB says television is uniquely well-positioned as it remains the primary influencer through all stages of a consumer’s purchase decision-making process. The Purchase Funnel 2017 study was conducted for the TVB by GfK and it looked at consumers exposed to advertising in six categories— automotive, banking, furniture, bedding and carpet, legal, medical, and QSR/ casual dining—across a spectrum of nearly two dozen media platforms. The study shows two-thirds of awareness to product and services is tied to television. The TVB reports 77% of consumers saw a TV spot and of that group 62% cited that ad as a #1 source of awareness. Plus another 4% said a local TV station’s website or app turned them onto products. Next in the funnel is interest in a product, and TV is tops there as well. The survey found 55% of influencers cited TV ads as what drives their interest with an additional 4% pointing to a local TV station’s website or app. All that interest drives people to either visit a store or a website with half of the people surveyed crediting a television commercial for piquing their curiosity. In fact the TVB says two-thirds of consumers report TV ads have influenced their online searches. After a consumer’s interest is whetted, then comes consideration in the funnel model and there again TV is tops. Half of the influencers said TV ads lead them to consider a product or service. Ultimately it all flows to an actual purchase and there’s where TV advertising really pays off for marketers. The TVB-GfK study found 46% of consumers said television commercials were responsible for them opening their wallet and buying a product or service. Another 3% cited an advertisement on a local TV station’s app or website. It means half of all purchase decisions linked to TV spots (read the media-by-media break down HERE). The report also shows just how untrustworthy consumers consider what they read on social media. To get a read on how brands may be received, the analysis looked at news content. The study shows 81% of consumers considered local broadcast news to be the most-trusted source of news. And 68% said they trust news they read on a local TV station’s website or app. Contrast that with social media as just 40% of participants said they trust what they read on sites like Facebook or Twitter. “TV is the most important influencer at all stages of the purchase funnel, greater than all other media platforms combined,” TVB chief research officer Hadassa Gerber said, summing up the report. “This is true for all ethnic and age groups studied, even 18-34 year olds,” she added.

ADVERTISER NEWS Macy’s is making some big management changes, eliminating about 100 jobs and consolidating its merchandising, planning and private-label functions while hiring an eBay SVP to become its new President. CEO Jeff Gennette also said he wants to avoid a “sea of sameness” in Macy’s merchandise and hopes to raise the percentage of “exclusive merchandise” sales to 40% from about 29% now……Could we be saying “Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday” soon? Nation’s Restaurant News reports the chain has entered the final phase of a strategic review that could bring about a sale of the company, which had comps fall 1.6% in its latest quarter that ended on 6/6. After closing over 100 restaurants since last summer, the chain stands at 543 company-owned locations and 62 franchises……Zoes Kitchen will cut back its expansion plans to 25-30 next year from the 38-40 that will be opened before the end of this year. Comp restaurants sales were down 3.8% in the second quarter with a 5% drop in customer transactions……Two private equity firms have put together a deal to merge two athletic footwear and apparel retailers. Baltimore-based DTLR (formerly Downtown Locker Room) has over 100 stores in the mid-Atlantic region and Philadelphia-based Sneaker Villa has over 120 locations mostly in the Midwest. The deal is said to “accelerate growth and expand our reach,” according to DTLR’s CEO……DSW reported its first positive comp quarter since 2015, albeit a moderate 0.6% gain, that still left the year-to-date down 1.3%. Still the chains sees opportunity, noting “The current retail consolidation provides significant opportunity to acquire market share.” DSW currently has 511 stores in 43 states and another 350 leased locations in larger stores……Kirkland’s second quarter comp store sales were up 1.2% including e-commerce compared to a decrease of 4.3% in the quarter a year ago. The chain added eight new stores during the quarter and closed three, bringing the total up to 406 locations at the end of the quarter…… Furniture Today reports the debut of TJX’s first Homesense store in Massachusetts last week was a huge success as people lined up down the block and “the décor-loving mob was clearly ready to storm the fort.” Three more locations of the new banner are expected to open this year and likely there are many more to come as the expansion-oriented parent company spreads from its East Coast roots……Inmar Willard Bishop’s projection of the supermarket business five years from now suggests that “super warehouse” stores such as Cub Foods, Food 4 Less and Smart & Final will grow store count almost 30% by 2021, with their dollar share of the market up to 2.3% from the current 2.0%.

NETWORK NEWS ABC’s The Chew will be serving up some special guests in the week leading up to Labor Day weekend. On Tuesday, August 29th Derek Hough (World Of Dance) will be dropping in to make his favorite dessert, Banana Cream Pie. And on Wednesday, August 30th acclaimed actor John Lithgow will be there to create a classic state fair favorite. On Thursday, August 31st the show will visit the kitchen of the USS Kearsarge to get a look behind the scenes at feeding our servicemen and women, and Friday, September 1st the theme is BBQ … NBC had plans to make Thursday night “Must-See TV” (again) by moving This Is Us to pair with the return of Will And Grace, but has since decided to back off of that strategy. As a result, This Is Us is staying put at 9:00 pm Tuesdays … On Monday September 4th, The Movies! TV Network will pay tribute to Jerry Lewis, who died Sunday, with a Labor Day marathon of his films, The “Jerry Lewis ICON-A-THON!” featuring five of the comedian’s films. Included in the lineup are the 1959 naval comedy Don’t Give Up The Ship at 8 a.m., followed by The Ladies Man (1961) at 10; Lewis’ most popular movie, The Nutty Professor (1963), at 12:30 p.m.; the sex farce Boeing, Boeing (1965) co-starring Tony Curtis at 3 p.m., and 1965’s The Family Jewels at 5:30 p.m.The timing for the marathon is appropriate: From 1966 to 2010, Lewis hosted his telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association each Labor Day weekend … During President Trump’s address to the nation on a new strategy in Afghanistan, NBC tops other broadcasters with a 3.8/6 household rating from 9-9:30 PM, edging out ABC’s 3.2/5. CBS followed with a 2.8/5, followed by Fox Broadcast’s 1.8/3 … A new agreement between Katz Broadcasting and Univision will mean Univision Communication’s TV stations will continue to air Bounce, Escape, Grit and Laff as subchannels on its major market outlets through 2024. And beginning next month Univision’s WFDC in Washington, D.C. will begin carrying Bounce. The niche channels were purchased from Katz earlier this month for $292 million by E.W. Scripps and will close in October. Univision offers the Katz channels in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Francisco, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Phoenix, Denver, Orlando, Sacramento and 10 other markets.

DONE DEALS MediaDailyNews.com reports Terry Kent, a veteran M&A expert in the media and advertising industries who most recently served as global CEO of the Ad Intelligence Business of WPP’s Kantar Media unit, has launched the Kent Advisory Group. Kent says the new firm will focus on assisting early stage and startup companies prepare and position for the “next stage of growth,” with an emphasis on business development and strategic planning necessary to attract financial institutions, partners and strategic investors. Prior to Kantar, Kent held a number of senior positions at predecessor companies including TNS Media and VNU.

EMARKETER: “MODERATELY STRONG HOLIDAY SEASON” We’ve already seen at least one store with a full Christmas display up, so it’s time for the first forecast of the holiday shopping season. eMarketer is predicting a “moderate” 3.1% increase in total retail sales, noting retailers will engage in heavy discounting during the core months of November and December. Its estimate of total sales for the period is $923.15 billion, representing 18.4% of total retail sales for the year. Retail e-commerce sales are expected to rise by 16.6%, largely from increases in mobile commerce as the battle intensifies between large retailers and digital marketplaces. E-commerce grew by about 14.3% of total sales last holiday season, and eMarketer says e-commerce’s share will be 11.5% of shopping dollars this year. It also expects November and December combined to account for 23.6% of all e-commerce dollars this year.

BUSINESS BYTES We reported last week on how important used-vehicle sales are to franchised car dealers (about a quarter of the total gross profit for a typical dealership), and of course there are many used-vehicle only stores that also (or should) advertise on television. Now a new report from Black Book finds the glut of used vehicles available has caused prices to plummet about 17% in the last year, saying the average price of a used vehicle was $18,400 a year ago, but is only $15,300 right now. We’ve already covered most of the reasons for the glut, including increasing numbers of leased vehicles coming back to dealerships and the fact that improved reliability of vehicles has aged the fleet of vehicles on the road to a new record. While the average of all vehicles is dropping, some segments are being hit worse than others—Automotive News reports subcompact cars such as the Honda Fit and large sedans such as the Chevy Impala are depreciating faster than average, while big SUVs, vans, and pickups are holding their values a little better. It also notes imports tend to drop more quickly that domestic models.

CASH-BACK CARDS PREFERRED The annual study of credit cards from J.D. Power finds that increasing interest rates, deeper card penetration and strong consumer spending has upped the competition among bank and credit card companies, creating a customer incentive war that has helped increase the overall satisfaction rate among card users. While overall customer satisfaction set a new record for the study at 802 on Power’s usual 1,000-point scale, Cash-back cards were easily the most satisfying with airline cards and store-branded cards having the lowest levels of satisfaction. Another emerging factor is that regional banks have become more competitive with the larger card issuers, with the number of active regional bank card accounts up 24% since 2014. American Express scored highest with an 835 while Discover was close behind at 827. Among banks issuing Visa and Mastercard, heavily-advertised Capital One scored best at 808, followed by Barclaycard.

NO SURPRISE - TV VIEWING DOWN IN JULY Television viewing was down 2.8% during July according to an analyst of Nielsen data by Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser. He reports the drop-off was a bit steeper among adults 18- 49. Wieser says that demo’s total TV viewing slipped 4.3% during July with a slightly smaller 3.6% decline during prime time viewing hours. His number-crunching also shows viewing declines were somewhat larger for the national TV networks. While total viewing may’ve been off, at the same time consumption of television content via internet-connected devices such as Apple TV, Roku and Google’s Chromecast grew 43% compared to a year ago. Wieser says those web devices accounted for 12.7% of total TV usage among 18-49 year olds during July. That compares to 8.5% in July 2016 and 4.9% in July 2015. Wieser’s analysis also shows it’s not just younger demos using connected devices. Across all households he reports the devices accounted for 8.5% of daily TV viewing last month. That was up from 5.6% in July 2016 and 3.2% in July 2015. “We continue to believe in our maxim that television is the worst form of advertising except all those others which have been tried, at least for those advertisers focused on awareness-based media goals, and budgets are generally unaffected by changes in ratings in the short-term,” Wieser says in a note to clients. But he warns the sentiment towards TV is likely to worsen if viewer number s decline. “Negative sentiment ultimately leads to advertisers’ efforts to explore and encourage the use of alternative media vehicles, otherwise establish marketing goals that are not necessarily awareness-driven,” he says. The report doesn’t cover local TV ads but it does give a peek at what station’s networks are doing. It shows the average national network ran 10.7 minutes of spots during July which was down 1.8% or 0.2 minutes compared to a year ago.

AVAILS

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The jackpot is up, an enormous sum. Playing the Powerball is a great way to spend quality time with strangers outside gas stations. – Jimmy Kimmel

Why is it when the sun blacks out on a Monday afternoon it’s an “amazing natural phenomenon” but when I do it’s a “problem” – FunnyTweeter.com

------SPOTS N DOTS The Daily News Of TV Sales August 23, 2017 Phone: 888-884-2630