Page 31 - Adnews Magazine May-June 2021

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“Thus, many achieved sales growth without the same marketing effort,” says Allen. “So many are playing catch up now, and using what they have captured in sales and margin to boost effort before the June 30 balance date.”
At Ten, Rod Prosser, chief sales officer at ViacomCBS, was pleased from a business perspective, despite everything, at the end of last year. “We had some nice momentum going into those really terrible months, around May, June and July,” he says. “We just continued to deliver a fairly solid plate. Our audiences went up and our revenue share went up during
that period. Not our revenue, but our share of the pie went up.
“And then for us, throughout the whole of the second half, that momen- tum just continued. I don't know how many businesses can say that, but
we certainly felt like we weathered the storm, so to speak, fairly well.”
In uncertain times, people tend to turn to things they trust.
“And television is no different,” he says. “We saw brands leaning on
TV during those difficult COVID-19 months in the middle of the year. “And of course people weren't moving around as much as they nor-
mally would. I think we were able to capitalise on that as a medium. “Brands have moved back to television and invested more into TV. It's actually really worked for them. Their advertising campaigns on TV have been validated. A lot of marketers are saying it's done better than they've seen for many years. And they've consolidated their expense rather than having it all fragmented into various online chan-
nels. Those advertisers are sticking around and staying on TV.”
Lead times for bookings have stretched
“If you're not booking 12 weeks in advance, you're not necessarily
getting the exact schedule you want,” says Prosser.
“But the notion that TV networks are just running full, month after
month, is not factual. We can accommodate most bookings and clients, it's just the selection or environment they're after gets more challenging as we get closer to on-air dates.
“We’ve seen huge growth in the consumption of on-demand platforms during the past year. Total TV strategies can no longer be avoided.”
Dan O’Brien, Frontier Australia
“I know there's certainly been some noise, I think, from some other competing media sectors, saying, ‘Television's full, advertise on us.’
“That’s not the case.”
Is there a feeling of a renaissance around television at the moment?
Prosser: “That's an interesting word to use, but if you think about all the parts of TV that are now coming together... you’ve got VOZ coming, you've got broadcast vid- eo-on-demand platforms really forging forward at a rapid pace. Whether that be from the adver- tising revenue point of view, or just sheer eyeballs watching on that platform. And indeed, the linear broadcast channels are holding their own fairly well.”
Kurt Burnette, chief revenue officer at Seven: “It was a watershed year that's for sure and it changed everything. But what's been inter- esting is how we came out.
“The questions being asked around this time last year was how long would this last? What would the recovery be? Would there be a recovery?