Multi-channel TV is ‘best for advertisers’

The UK’s main multi-channel television broadcasters have jointly funded research showing that brands that have increased their media spend and the proportion allocated to multi-channel TV have outperformed other brands.

Commissioned by BSkyB, IDS, Flextech, UKTV, Sci-Fi, Turner Broadcasting and Viacom Brand Solutions, and published by Taylor Nelson Sofres, the SFX (Sales Effects) project examines media expenditure and purchasing data for more than 100 brands that have changed their media strategy in the past year.

The research shows that brands which boosted media spending experienced an average ten per cent rise in sales for the year to June 2003, whereas those that decreased their media spend recorded only a 3.3 per cent rise on average. Those that stopped advertising altogether experienced an average dip in sales of 9.2 per cent.

Within the set of brands increasing their media spend, those that increased the proportion allocated to TV generally produced an average 12.1 per cent increase in sales.

Brands that increased both media spend and the proportion allocated to multi-channel TV recorded an average rise in sales of 16 per cent. Sales of this last group of brands to viewers exposed to multi-channel advertising rose by 18 per cent, compared with an increase of 13 per cent to viewers in homes with access to analogue terrestrial channels only.

Sky Media head of research Julian Dobinson says: “The message for advertisers is that TV works and that multi-channel works best, creating measurable growth for brands.”