Thoughts about TV advertising

On June 19th I posted an item about Thinkbox, the television marketing body for all the UK commercial broadcasters - Channel 4, Five, GMTV, ids, ITV, Sky media, Turner Broadcasting and Viacom Brand solutions.

When I used the web site’s search feature for case studies I found that the oldest age group in the “Target Audience” drop-down menu was 35+. I was also amused that one of the search categories was “housewives”. In my opinion these couple of examples reinforced all of the stereotypes of the TV industry (including the BBC) being obsessed with youth at the expense of other age groups.

Well somebody from Thinkbox contacted me, and this is what they said.

We take your point about there being specific slot for the 50 plus demographic in our case studies section but neither is there one on the age between 35+. We hope that this age group is covered in All Adults.

We have a section dedicated to information on the 50+ demographic titled: Flourishing Fifties . To quote a section from the transcript:

“The demographic projections of what this country is going to look like in 15, 20 even 50 years’ time shows that this important group will be working longer, contributing more to the tax bill, will have greater demand for things like health services. This sector of the population will be contributing a large amount to the way the country is governed, run and funded.”

We also have a number of films dedicated to this section here:

Do have a look at this section and let us know what you think.

We rely on contributions from our audience for ideas on interesting case studies. If you have any case studies in mind that target this group do let us know and we’ll follow them up.

I would appreciate it if you could post my comments on your blog or make some alterations to point out that we are not ignoring this important audience group.

In terms of language, use of the term ‘housewives’, yes this is old fashioned but this is the industry language used for when TV is sold.

Firstly, it is great when companies respond to blog comments – well done Thinkbox. Secondly, these comments made me have a much more detailed look at the Thinkbox web site. It is very good and contains a lot of really useful information (have a look at the “nickable charts”).

The video clip, which is a focus group, is well worth a view.

If you have a look at two of the PowerPoint slides, in the “nickable charts” section, you will see that in 2006 the number of people aged 15-44 is exactly the same as those who are 44+, secondly you will see that the viewing figures are highly skewed towards older people.

The fact that the web site clearly doesn’t convey the impression that 50% of the most avid viewers of TV are 44+ is not the fault of Thinkbox, just as the majority of advertising creative is aimed at a 18-35 year olds. It is the fault of clients. Let me say that again. It is the fault of client companies who rightly or wrongly (more wrongly than right) are obsessed with engaging an audience that is decreasing in size and spending power. Daft or what!

Once again – thanks Thinkbox for your comments – I shouldn't shoot the messenger.Dick Stroud