(By Charlie Sislen) My previous post (Who Are Your Market’s Non-TV Viewers?) showed how, by using Scarborough, you can document the demographic profile of non-broadcast TV viewers. In case you missed it, we showed that every one of the six demographic cells that comprise Adults 18-44 out-indexed the market for non-TV viewing. Using this data we were able to demonstrate that a broadcast TV buy would miss a large portion of adults under the age of 44, as many of them don’t watch any broadcast TV.
This is important competitive information as this group is targeted by many advertisers. Can you imagine proving to a TV advertiser that a large portion of their target audience never sees their ad? You can do this with the power of local Scarborough data.
Using either Tapscan’s Scarborough Crosstab report or Research Director’s Prospector report, you can determine what media non-TV viewers consume. Both reports use the same Scarborough data, which is local to your market. In the hands of a savvy account rep, this can be a game-changer.
For example …
Examining a random market revealed that over one-third of those residing in a household that plans to buy a new or used car in the next year do not watch broadcast TV:
— 34.4% of those residing in a household that plans to buy a new vehicle in the next year have not watched broadcast TV in the past week. That is 22% higher than the market average.
— 35.1% of those residing in a household that plans to buy a used vehicle in the next year have not watched broadcast TV in the past week. This is 24% higher than the market average.
In other words, broadcast TV is missing over one-third of a car dealer’s target customers.
This same exercise can prove to any advertiser that, by relying on TV, a large segment of their potential consumers may be missed.
This is a great way to pry some of that budget away from TV and convert it into radio. Instead of wasting their budget on a medium that you can prove to be less than effective, you can add a new client to radio’s roster.
Need help understanding how to show an advertiser that they may be missing a large portion of their potential consumers with TV? Feel free to contact me at (see below).
Charlie Sislen is a partner at Research Director, Inc. He can be reached at 410-956-0363 or by e-mail at [email protected]. This blog post is part of a series titled “Growing the Radio Pie.” To view past articles, visit The Ratings Experts at Research Director, Inc. online here.
