TV has always taken advantage of technological innovation and the more a medium is predicated on technology the less likely it is to be affected by it. So when I see the headline in AdExchanger titled “How Local TV is Fighting to Evolve”, I take pause. Here’s all you need to know about AdExchanger in order to determine they have a vested interest in dragging linear TV down the digital rabbit hole; AdExchanger is an integrated media and events company devoted to the digital advertising and marketing space.
Sure, TV should adopt tools that make it more flexible and competitive, but by doing so it is not “Fighting to Evolve”. Evolve to what exactly? If the answer is the AdTech end-all-be-all of microtargeting then we can just blow up the entire headline. Why would anyone “fight” to become worse? That’s right.. TV would Devolve if it were just another platform connected to an Exchange. There’s very little room, if any, for Linear TV to improve on making Big Brands famous and legitimate. AdExchanger implies that TV needs to go programmatic in order to survive. The point of advertising to the masses for Big Brands is that it can never be wasteful and is never not relevant; the two manufactured problems AdTech claims to solve. There is no shortage of the typical sky is falling clichés; TV is “grappling with falling ratings” and “its audience continues to slip away”. The audiences are there and by every reliable account increasing. It’s just that they are hidden behind an array of devices and measurement systems. “Extending reach” is less about finding new audiences than it is about accurately accounting for the ones that are already there.
When will we stop being so easily dazzled by flamboyant claims that Tech is the answer to everything and instead focus on a ground up approach that puts a premium on effectiveness and the marketing tools available that maximize it based on goals? TV is best at generating Scale of Attention in the upper funnel and digital tools are great at taking it from there to drive mid and lower funnel Consideration, Intent and Action. It is in this area that TV can evolve and where it holds the promise of transforming into an even more powerful Medium than it already is (not one that is in a fight to save itself lest it evolve). AdTech needs the holy grail of the flat screen plasma infinitely more than TV needs AdTech. Flipping that script with relentless repletion is the best pitch going…
