Down to its very roots, TVLowCost has these ‘low cost’ principles in mind.
We have 4 key steps.
1. TV Media Planning … and avoiding the obvious
When the majority of advertisers concentrate on Peak-time with its larger audiences but huge resultant costs, TVLowCost exploits the many opportunist buying occasions on other channels during Off-peak. With great effect. The laws of ’supply and demand’ at Peak-time force prices radically upwards with so many competing but airtime during the Day or Late can often be 6 times cheaper. Add to this that such programming often has more tightly focussed target audiences with stronger reasons to watch … and you can gain great added value plus better cost-efficiencies from such a strategy. All consumers are consumers at the end of the day; it’s only what you need to pay in order to reach them that’s the real issue. TVLowCost’s chosen Media partner in the UK is Mediaedge:CIA, or MEC. Clients include Colgate, COI, Audi, Direct Line and Vodafone. As part of WPP’s GroupM Media Planning and Buying Group, it enjoys [as your brand will] the largest combined spending power of all, some £2bn. The biggest buying leverage possible. So you’ll be in the best of hands.
2. The All-in-One ‘TVLowCost’ revolution … for £200k ONLY!
Having worked with all categories and sizes of advertiser, we appreciate the enormous pressures on ad budgets and the ease with which they can be exceeded. The Ad Industry is not often sympathetic to such constant headaches. In turn and with TV always being seen as an expensive medium, many advertisers avoid the risk altogether. Too risky, right? We’d say ‘No’ and our ‘All-in-One TV Package’ is the answer. As with MEC on the Media front, we have chosen the best possible TV Production Company to partner: Space City . Founded in 1981 and working for the likes of the BBC, Thomas Cook, Orangina, Dettol and Mencap, they produce 180 commercials pa and significantly have total in-house facilities all the way through to transmission. Our contract for £200k guarantees the following all-inclusive services with no extra costs: Management of the entire process [8 weeks from Brief] … Creative fees and rights of use … full TV Production through to copy clearance, on-air transmission and running costs … a qualitative pre-test plus a two-stage quantified pre- and post- campaign Impact & Awareness check by IPSOS … and a tailored Off-peak TV airtime package with minimum 100+ national TV spots. No extra costs. No nasty surprises.
3. A minimum of senior staff focussed on the essentials
A key principle of ‘low cost’ generally, and it works. Avoid expensive non-essentials and hangers-on; only deliver what the consumer actually needs. A ‘low cost’ airline’s planes are just as reliable as those of the major carriers. Its crews just as competent. But the lounges, free drinks and over-generous staffing levels can stay with their competitors … simply because they are not needed in this case.
TVLowCost applies these same rules. A tight team and not a troop. Modest offices with no OTT HQ’s. No shareholders applying constant pressures on margins at all costs, profits being their sole mission. We apply only the skills necessary to ensure total success, and from one combined team. Our 4-step process and ‘low cost’ culture enables a new TV campaign to hit all those screens on time, on budget, and in only 8 weeks too.
4. TV Production – the less expensive way
Campaigns can cost more or less, as you like. But great creative ideas are simple and don’t always have to be executed expensively. They also sell by themselves. A commercial complete with famous actor and shot on 35mm on the Barrier Reef will certainly cost, but is it all to mask … that there’s no great idea there in the first place? Maybe. We’d prefer to focus on bringing out the product’s tangible plusses – its competitive edges – rather than applying loads of expensive seduction techniques to do the selling. There is a difference in approach here. Our advertising is here to sell.
Our system of TV Production at TVLowCost concentrates on producing the best in the most tailored and so economical way possible. Every time. Always shooting in our studios or out locally, with digital film and simultaneous cameras, with Directors with wider experience than just ads, and with production methods proven in the US … these are only some of the methods we use to trim costs down to ‘as needed only’ levels. Space City’s breadth and depth of TV experience over 24 years from its ‘all in-house facilities’ Studios in Hammersmith, London provide all the creativity, technical skills and reassurance any Client will need. TVLowCost then uses this leverage to deliver quality work … to our Clients. And then together celebrates converting both non-TV advertisers and lapsed users to using TV advertising again, still the most powerful of all media today.
Why make TV advertising more accessible?
Because it is still by far the most effective medium. It is television that makes certain brands world famous, such as Coca-Cola, L’Oréal, Procter & Gamble, Danone… Television remains the highest impact and persuasion medium of all. In 2004 TV was watched by the general public all over the world on an average of 3h24 everyday. 73% of our free time is spent watching television! In just a few days a brand can be shown to millions of potential customers. Early morning, 3pm in the afternoon or even in the middle of the night, there are hundreds of thousands of viewers watching programmes. Applying our ‘ Low Cost ‘ approach to TV makes it far more accessible to advertisers who want it – need it – to build their brands’ profiles and reputations, boost their sales, and defend their market positions.
The ‘TVLowCost All-in-One Pack’ is the most economical, value for money entry ticket to TV available. For only £200k in the UK, your brand will benefit from a full strategic, creative, production, research and media airtime package. All-in-one. No surprises, and with nothing else to pay. With an average UK 30 sec TV commercial costing around £140k for production alone today – and with running costs and airtime on top – the added value within this all-inclusive £200k opportunity is indeed exceptional. The Off-peak TV airtime Package, tightly targeted, will also deliver around 50% coverage at 3 OTS – an equivalent to a minimum 100+ national TV spots. We have a variety of primary Target Groups – Housewives + Kids, Housewives 16-54, Adults 55+ and Kids 5-14 – but can tailor Packages to suit.
TVLowCost: 100% solutions for Challenger Brands
TVLowCost makes TV advertising accessible – and very affordably so – to all advertisers with smaller budgets. So, what do we mean by Challenger Brands – and what are the circumstances of the 3 types of Client who will gain most from our £200k ‘All-in-One TV’ proposition? Challengers are secondary/tertiary brands with high ambitions but limited £ resources and skills – certainly against their larger competitors who probably out-gun them 5x [even 10x] in marketing spend terms, their war-chests bristling with armoury. So, our ‘Davids’ have to be altogether smarter and out-think, out-create, out-tactic, out-whatever … their respective ‘Goliaths’ in order to make their limited funds work harder. A ‘2+2=6′ challenge. TVLowCost … is a remarkably low-cost but high-impact new weapon to this end, offering remarkable value for money . Our ideal Clients are:
1] New-to-TV Brands … a brand that sorely needs TV for the first time but previous cost appraisals have scared them away, so they’ve existed in print advertising and other lesser means, propped up well by effective BTL. But … still they face delistings and the second of the Big 5 Grocers is threatening again.
2] Lapsed TV Brands … whose fortunes have similarly driven it to use lesser media props but, with a previous TV ad heritage and strong residual brand values, a good dose of TV would see them all dusted off and re-born. And the Trade would love it!
3] Smaller Brands in larger Company portfolios … those deserving but lesser brands residing in the Marketing Director’s bottom drawers at the ‘Big Company’. Whilst his/her priority brands enjoy fuller marketing funds, these make do with the crumbs and valiantly keep their heads above water. Most monies have to go to retaining distribution but … wouldn’t TV be great? And right now? And we surely do have that £200k needed to make this a reality! Read on …
