The latest report from the Billett Consultancy seems to imply that
there’s a rather pernicious class system evolving in the television
airtime market, with advertisers targeting women, and older people being
treated like second-class citizens. Many observers have always suspected
that the advertising industry tends to favour the beautiful people, but
according to the Billett study, this strategy isn’t down to some ageist
blind prejudice.
And we’re not exactly talking chair-lift advertisers here - we’re
talking mainstream, the ones that target mass audiences.
Advertisers in growth sectors such as telecoms are specific about their
target audience - it’s young and largely male. Only certain types of
airtime are appropriate, so television companies tend to schedule their
airtime first. Way at the back of the queue come the fmcg advertisers,
who are the medium’s most loyal supporters.
Because all sorts of airtime can be appropriate for them, they don’t
have to make really picky demands about what programming they need. And
as they’re the easiest for the TV contractors to schedule, they’re left
until last. So they tend to get some pretty unattractive airtime.
This optimisation process - by which advertiser demands are prioritised
and airtime is allocated in the most efficient way possible - is
computerised. The problem, says the Billett report, is compounded by
another type of optimisation carried out by media specialists.
Called the agency deal, this involves buyers committing to take a
certain amount of airtime from a broadcaster, then trying to find the
right home for it among its portfolio of clients.
Somewhere along the way, says John Billett, chairman of the Billett
Consultancy, TV’s best customers are being sold short. He states:
’Television has to appeal to a broad range of clients and it’s not in
anyone’s interest to see well-established advertisers being pushed off.
The medium may have to offer bigger discounts to tempt them back. What
we’ve seen is that this is not an even playing field.’
But hang on a minute. When was the airtime market ever fair? Isn’t it
like most things - don’t you tend to get exactly what you pay for? After
all, isn’t everything negotiable? Surely we’re just talking about lazy
advertisers who’ve allowed commodity thinking to permeate their planning
and buying. Don’t they deserve everything they get?
Billett responds: ’They may be getting what they negotiate but not what
they are entitled to. You might negotiate for 25 per cent centre breaks
when, in fact, you can get 40 per cent, if you know how. There are many
advertisers, especially those chasing young male audiences, who are
pushing harder than others. All I am doing is airing these issues in
public. I am saying that you have to know how the system works. You must
make sure you are getting what you want by design rather than by
default.’
In the wider scheme of things, do mainstream advertisers deserve
better?
Are new converts to TV treated better than the old faithful? Mick
Desmond the chief executive of Granada Media doesn’t think so. ’It is
true that we have become extremely sophisticated at maximising our
product. It’s also true that what we’ve been seeing is a large influx of
clients which are male-biased and will not be buying daytime weekday
parts. But it’s our job to deliver audiences by demographics and most of
the buying points have optimisation systems that are as sophisticated as
ours. It’s always the case that good buyers will do better than not so
good buyers.’
The people who should really take care, says Desmond, are advertisers
who buy ratings packages on satellite, where it’s common to see products
aimed at adults scheduled onto children’s channels.
The report drew a far more heated reaction from the buying
community.
Some were tempted to question the role and primary motivation of
auditing companies like the Billett Consultancy. ’They trade on fear,
selling their services to clients by creating worries that are usually
groundless,’ said one. Another, who declined to take part in Forum,
said: ’Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’
Ground-breaking research to improve media buying is always welcomed.
But, according to Chris Locke joint managing director of MediaVest,
words like ’grandmother, eggs and suck’ spring to mind when you read
this latest report. He adds: ’We buy programmes, contractors sell
audiences. This is not a new dichotomy. It is unusual for a TV plan to
have only one target audience and agencies are well versed in developing
plans which target, for example, ABC1 adults biased towards 16-24
year-old males, even though they will only deal against ABC1s as a
whole. We are used to pretending to buy apples when we want oranges.
Daypart, day of week, channel mix, specific programme access and
repetition - or lack of it - can be built into TV deals.’
Locke insists that plans are called plans because they are precisely
that. Media specialists do not stumble into TV activity. Everything is
carefully thought out and optimised before negotiations begin. He does
concede that clients targeting a broad audience do find it hard to
justify being choosy about their airtime, while still hitting their
audience targets.
’That’s the reason most brands buy a sub-audience or audiences. There
will always be some point of conflict but the key is in setting the
communications targets and aims, as much as in the actual buying.’
Tom George, a managing partner of Zenith Media, agrees with some aspects
of the report. But he states: ’Contractors have become very good at
optimising their schedules in order to generate the most revenue. You
make an assessment about the schedule and the cost, then judge
accordingly. It is our job to address precisely these concerns.’
