Viewpoint

Tristan Brooks Tristan is managing partner at Azure, Havas Entertainment, a specialist media planning and buying agency focused on child markets.

Kids’ viewing habits -the tipping point

A changing of the guard is happening which should make child marketeers sit up, take notice and potentially revise their thinking for the coming year. Tristan Brooks, of Havas Entertainment, tells us more.

Post-Christmas, kids’ commercial TV viewing is now at an all-time low. During the festive break new devices such as tablets and smart TVs are gifted and streaming services introduced to entertain the family, which impacts on time they’d usually spend watching kids’ commercial TV channels (think Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network). This decline in viewing is nothing new and happens after every Christmas, including during lockdown. However, the viewing declines we’ve seen this year have accelerated dramatically, at a time where supply is now seriously challenged.

To put this in context, over the past five years (2017 to 2021) we’ve seen a 60% (BARB data) decline in kids’ commercial TV viewing for children aged four to nine. This January alone, we saw viewing for the same audience decline 30% on the previous month. In comparison to the previous January, viewing was down -49%. The problem is that, although the decline of kids’ commercial TV has been happening over many years, we’ve now reached a tipping point.

Planning TV campaigns has fundamentally changed. Agencies would plan TV weights based on the client’s objectives and budget for the campaign, informed by performance learnings. Now the conversation is being reframed around what weight of advertising can feasibly be delivered. This immediately caps achievable weekly TVRs, reach and investment levels.

At a certain weight of TV advertising, reaching new viewers becomes increasingly hard and therefore you end up remarketing to the same audience again and again. Kids’ commercial TV built its reputation on delivering child and co-viewing audiences cost effectively at scale, which drove predicable sales uplifts - but this model is now flawed. This decline should challenge advertisers to rethink their media investment now, so they have time to make informed decisions around creative and media placement to maximise campaign effectiveness and, ultimately, drive sales performance.

Over the past decade, kids’ broadcast TV sales houses have continued to increase the pricing of their TV airtime, due to operating in a supply and demand market. As long as they can sell the airtime, as supply reduced whilst demand remained high, they could mitigate revenue

declines by pushing up prices. Now their challenge will be how to stop TV investment moving to other media at a faster rate than anticipated, especially to digital video media where pricing is comparable, certainly during peak season.

The recent announcement by Disney, that in 2023 they will offer Disney+ at a reduced subscription fee which will carry advertising, shows that content owners are willing to test a new subscription model to drive growth. Such a model may help our industry, as no doubt Netflix, Amazon and others will be watching the success of this launch very closely.

I believe YouTube provides the greatest synergy and alternative for kids TV investment. The video platform offers more granular targeting, greater potential audience reach, connected TV delivery, greater control over optimising performance, greater creative freedom and investment flexibility. To show a reach comparison between kids TV and YouTube, if we were to advertise in every ad break across all the children’s commercial stations in the UK for a whole month, we would reach about 40% of children at least once between the ages of four to nine (BARB data). To reach the same audience across YouTube platforms you’d reach 95% (Kids Insights data). These stats cannot be ignored.

The tipping point for many of our clients at Havas Entertainment is now happening, as we advise and support them through this transition, aided by our leading data capabilities and expertise, especially in digital platforms. As the market has evolved, so too must companies in order to set themselves up for the now and next. At Havas Entertainment we have built a specialist toy activation team, where every individual in that team operates across all media channels for our clients. Moving away from operating in media silos has enabled us to have much more meaningful and effective planning discussions with our clients. We believe that seeing the whole picture as the market evolves is essential to our and our clients’ future success and growth.

We are entering a new phase where kids’ commercial TV should no longer dominate the conversation. Our thinking and mindset as an industry needs to acknowledge this shift and embrace the opportunities that come with change. Yes, kids’ TV advertising will remain on media plans for the foreseeable future, but it’s role should not be the starting point. We must think about our target audience first; as they are digital media consumers first and foremost, so too must we think and be digital first.