Online brands are flocking to TV
There’s only one reason Purple (the young online mattress company) is pouring money into TV: they actually want to grow big. And TV is still one of the best ways to grow big.
Purple’s media spend increased TENFOLD from 2017. And lots of that is going to ‘top of funnel’ marketing.
It’s not that they’ve run out of runway online. But at $20 a click, bidding for search terms is getting pricey. And the combo of price and a narrow audience has led them to ‘untargeted’ ‘mostly-wasted’ ‘dying medium’ ‘no one watches it but old people’ TV. (PS: ‘old’ people use mattresses — and they have the damn money to buy them too.)
And they’re not the only ones: the Video Advertising Bureau found that “125 DTC brands in 52 different categories spent 60% more on TV ads in 2018 versus the year before.” Holy moly! The TV zombie might still have a beating heart after all!
There’ll be navel-gazing about the ‘personal intimate connection’ of the DTC model versus the impersonal mass broadcast of the squawk box. But most of that is BS. The truth is, the empirical evidence shows over and over that small brands are just like big brands when it comes to people’s ‘loyalty’ and ‘affinity’ for their brands. It’s just that big brands have more buyers.
And TV still delivers the buyers.