COVID’s Impact on Traditional Media Consumption
The year 2020 changed the way we do basically everything. From social behavior and working/learning remotely to how we shop and dine out, there was no escaping COVID-19’s impact on our daily lives and regular routines. One of the adjustments the advertising world had to make was shifting their clients’ messages to conform to the growing concern of shopping within the crowded public. And, as a media buyer at an advertising agency, I had to evaluate the current media strategy and decide where changes were needed. You know what they say about hindsight: it’s always – yes – 20/20. And the year 2020 did not come with instructions, so many agencies and media buyers went with the commonsense approach to answering questions like these:
Should we continue advertising on radio?
Most states ordered mandatory shutdowns of nonessential businesses, and advertising agencies knew this would immediately have a huge impact on traditional radio ratings. The “eyeball test” of seeing typical bumper-to-bumper morning traffic dwindle to a level more like late-night volume certainly validated this. The crystal ball proved correct, as we saw a dramatic decrease in radio ratings YOY, especially in sports radio and in the all-around morning drive areas1.
What about traditional billboards?
Similar to what we expected from radio, as regular highway traffic began disappearing there was concern over the impact of outdoor billboards. Since these advertising contracts were more difficult to cancel than any broadcast schedule, it was understood that billboard companies would be held to the expected impression count from those original contracts, and they’d end up owing millions of impressions to their clients by the end of 2020.
Will TV ratings spike during stay-at-home orders?
We also predicted that, with the mandatory shutdowns, people would flock to TV, turning to local news to keep up with COVID developments or choosing pure entertainment programming to escape the somber reality. We suggested not only that our clients stick with TV, but that they consider more video streaming options – a.k.a. OTT (over-the-top TV) and/or CTV (connected TV) – following from our prediction that boredom will eventually drive folks to discover new content. Again, the commonsense suggestions proved to be correct, as we saw a huge ratings increase on TV2 as well as a surge in streaming subscriptions (even those that are ad-supported)3.
Where should advertising be online?
Of course, those who were stuck at home turned mostly to the Internet, relying on online methods of shopping for groceries, toilet paper (if you were able to find it!), and even automobiles. Advertisers’ digital efforts had to shift in a major way in this media landscape, but that’s another topic for another day: we’ll stick to discussing traditional media this time around.
With 2020 behind us, advertising agencies and media buyers are busy reviewing the trends of new media consumption. We all knew the shift was headed toward digital and streaming; we just didn’t know it would be accelerated so drastically by a global pandemic. As people and as professionals, we are resilient and have the ability to adjust to all changes as they roll at us. It’s our duty to seek information and use the resources we have to make the best media decisions for our clients.
Written by: Dan Milone
1According to YOY 2019/2020 Jan.–Dec. Nielsen for the Providence, RI Metro market: Adults 25–54 Mon. –Fri. 6a–mid.
2According to YOY 2019/2020 Jan.–Dec. Nielsen for the Boston, MA Metro market: Adults 25–54 Mon.–Sun. All programming.
3Disney+ added 24 million subscribers in 2020 (up 48% in 2020).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1095372/disney-plus-number-of-subscribers-us/
Netflix added 37 million subscribers in 2020 (up 22% in2020).
https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-earnings-q4-2020-revenue-eps-profit-analysis-2021-1
Hulu added 8.1 million subscribers (up 28% in 2020).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/258014/number-of-hulus-paying-subscribers/