Samsung, Nationwide & Direct Line: The 10 biggest TV advertisers in March

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkmp8SmtXSg

Samsung has topped a list of the biggest TV advertisers by airtime in March, according to information compiled by data science company 4C.

Samsung came in at number one with 1,964 minutes of TV airtime across both free and pay-to-view TV. That was up 60% compared to the previous month and meant it rose in the rankings from 7th to 1st place.

The ad shows engineers and technicians at Samsung revealing all the safety and quality tests one of its smartphones goes through before it is launched. It follows the scandal surrounding the Note 7 device in which some of the phones either exploded or caught fire.

The electronics giant has been trying to rebuild trust in the brand since then and in particular last month as it prepped for the launch of its new smartphone, the Galaxy S8. And it appears to have been working, with Samsung set to post record revenues for the first quarter of 2017 and its brand rebounding, according to figures from YouGov BrandIndex.

Nationwide came in in second place with the latest in its series looking at its role as a building society following its rebrand to include the phrase in its name. The ad was on air for 1,597 minutes in March, just ahead of Direct Line’s most recent Winston Wolf ad for car insurance.

READ MORE: Direct Line CEO on turning the insurance company into a brand-driven business

The social engagement winners

In terms of social engagement, the winner in March was O2, which saw 30,576 social engagements around its TV ads, giving it a ‘TV social lift impact’ of 132.9%. It was followed by Apple, Morrisons, Tesco Mobile and Halifax.

4C assesses the TV ads generating the greatest consumer response on social media by using its TV monitoring network to determine when an ad is shown on TV and then measures the two-minute period after it starts across public posts on Facebook and Twitter.