Integrated Marketing Success: HGTV

With the opening of the American Association of Advertising Agencies annual meeting, agency folks are scrambling for ways to demonstrate results for their clients. With the big push for integrated campaigns, clients are telling agencies “Great, prove it works.” Many agencies use traffic measures such as Neilson Ratings and very basic internet measures such as clicks and visits or page views. What nonsense!

These same agencies have difficulty explaining the concept to potential clients using real results, instead they use jargon and talk about creative ideas. They should talk about strategy that really meets the needs of the organizations they are working for… so with that, here is an example.

If you are looking for an integrated media example to demonstrate the power of linking mediums to gain traffic and revenues, look no further than HGTV.com.

With a solid line-up of television shows on its own cable television channel, you might think that E.W. Scripps Company, parent of HGTV would be happy to simply collect the advertising and cable fees. They are way beyond that and are a model for other media companies looking to build their revenues while pushing out their content.

Let’s use the popular show, I Want That!, a half hour of product information for the latest trends in products for your home as an example. The show is really a series of product reviews sponsored by the manufacturers. Recent products featured included everything from $5.00 stick on designs for your ceramic tile backsplash to a $10,000 flat light panel dinner table. Every product discussed on the show is demonstrated and the manufacturer mentioned three to four times in a three minute segment. It’s an informative and fun show to watch.

But then the integrated marketing offer begins. After the products are reviewed, the hostess of the show integrates the offer by telling the audience “Want to learn more about product X? Visit our website on HGTV.com for a complete review of all the products mentioned on our show.” At several points following commercial breaks, the web site is promoted as well. In fact, if you weren’t paying close attention you might think the station is HGTV.com and not just plain HGTV. Very smart.

And assuming that you follow up and go visit HGTV.com you are presented with many features to help you in your organizing, decorating, and designing chores. You are also given many opportunities to click through on sponsored ads such as the banners for ING Direct, which also happens to be a major advertiser on the I Want That! show…

By tracking site metrics against showings of I Want That!, Scripps can determine the popularity of its show for comparision against Neilson ratings. It can also demonstrate to advertisers that the integration works and sell packages of TV and Online ads with hard data about the results. And lastly, by providing links to the manufacturers of these products Scripps is earning additional revenue by click through or online advertising cost per view charges. All of these data points can be utilized to show advertisers in the home products category just how successful advertising on the shows or site can be. With multiple offerings for product placement and ads, Scripps can provide the data necessary to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of its offerings.

Very smart, very integrated, and probably very profitable. It’s an excellent use of multiple mediums to achieve organizational goals.

Are you interested in learning more? Contact us and we’d be happy to show you how integrated marketing with solid measurable goals can help your company succeed.

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