Television looks the picture of good health

We were delighted to read about Nationwide’s decision to increase its investment in television advertising and the fact that its own research shows its TV advertising is proving more effective (“Sponsorship industry condemns Nationwide move back to TV ads” MW December 8) ). It reinforces several findings we have published this year from ITV’s Fame Metrics initiative.

New evidence was found not only into television being the most effective medium at delivering brand fame but also the fact that it amplifies the return on investment of other communication channels. For example, when television accounts for over 50 per cent of activity, the return from other media is greatly enhanced.

Although TV is changing at a breathtaking pace, broadcasters are witnessing an increasing desire from viewers to engage with programme content and ads through the red button, text, the Web or e-mail. And brands continue to invest an increasingly significant proportion of their communications budget into an integrated approach.

Phil Carling at Octagon talked about media fragmentation making it “practically impossible to reach certain audiences, particularly the 16- to 24-year-olds, through TV”. Consider

that those elusive 16- to 24s spend more time watching TV than consuming any other media, and over three times as many people watch the centre break in an episode of The Xtra Factor on ITV2 (let alone ITV1), than attend a conference league match on the same weekend, it’s far from impossible to reach those people.

Gary Digby

Managing director,

ITV Sales, London WC1