TVLowCost, the brains you need !

If your brand wants to survive to this recession, you should bring with you some perfectly adapted brains : those of TVLowCost teams around the world, for example !

 Launched 4 years ago our unique agency network extends rapidly, we are already based in 11 countries and new ones will join us in the next future. You may ask yourself why? Simply because we bring affordable TV advertising solutions to advertisers willing to reduce the costs of their advertising effort in the very difficult times our economies are facing since a few years… and the worse is probably to come.
Traditional “high cost” advertising agency competitors are unable to reduce spectacularly their costs when brands need more than ever to promote themselves at the lowest possible cost!
Traditional “high cost” advertising agencies continue to believe that a splendid headquarters is important to seduce clients, when it is probably the contrary.
Traditional “high cost” advertising agencies continue to shoot expensive and complicated TV commercials in exotic locations in order to win creative awards, when clients need TV ads that sell.
Traditional “high cost” advertising agencies have not perceived yet the intensity of the competition on which their clients are nowadays. Recession is everywhere and advertisers are obliged to reduce their costs everywhere, including on their marketing expenses, no discussion. It’s time for them to change their advertising partners and discover that TVLowCost can do “MORE FOR LESS” and help them grow in this very tough period!

Doctor TVLowCost

Recession ? Recession ! Recession… TVLowCost is the right medicine for your brand!

 

Recession is a popular descriptor recently, right? And not a single days goes by without hearing it many times. As Advertisers cut their budgets … they compound their difficulties.
With no advertising, how are consumers meant to make the best choices?  At TVLowCost, we believe we have just the right medicine for your brand: optimising the most powerful medium – TV – whilst actually reducing your budget!
Our unique ” All-Inclusive TV Package” enables you to reduce your ad budget by 3-4 times BUT still be present on Nat TV with a powerful and creative presence. In the 11 markets where we are established, TVLowCost proves every day that it is possible to “Get more for less” even with a reduced budget. But naturally you need to understand just how we achieve this. Check our various webs out and judge the creativity of our many TV Campaigns. Then call our local CEO and he will explain specifically how we can pro-actively help your Company side-step this difficult period. Prepare to be convinced!

Why is TVLowCost so well adapted to the “cost cutting” era? Because TVLowCost’ s unique approach : “GET MORE FOR LESS”, allows brands to increase their market share while spending less in TV advertising.

Since a few weeks every “ADVERTISING AGE” issue announces advertising cost cuttings by the largest global advertisers. In the 4th of august 2008 magazine, they report the impressive decrease of marketing expenditures made by some giants in the last quarter. Procter & Gamble : – 19, 4%, Johson & Johson : – 8,6%, L’Oréal : – 6,6%, Unilever : -4,1%…

According to the journalists : “The pullbacks come as the marketers grapple with rising commodity costs, big price increases, rising private label sales and consumers who’ve been spending less. Unilever executives last week described the U.S. market as essentially flat.
A study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers for the Grocery Manufacturers of America showed the percentage of package-goods players whose North American sales were shrinking as a share of their total rose to 41% in the fourth quarter from only 6% in the first quarter of last year.”

It is now absolutely evident that a vast majority of advertisers are starting to reduce their costs to adapt themselves to the difficult market environment.
It is also evident that cutting advertising is not a good solution for the future of their brands, they know that perfectly, but they believe that there is no other solution in front of a “Recession” that could stay for a long period.

In the same AD AGE issue, Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow says. “When a company says it is going to meet its fourth-quarter estimate by cutting marketing spending and laying off 300 people in North America, we take it as a bad sign,”.

Advertisers should take a first decision : abandon their current “high cost” advertising partners and switch to TVLowCost.

Our unique “All Inclusive TV Packs” is the best answer advertisers can find, in order to reduce their
advertising costs AND increase in the same time their media visibility in the most efficient media: national television!
All the marketers know the efficiency of TV advertising, but they have been, for decades, “manipulated” by high cost advertising agencies and high cost media agencies who have made everything very expensive.

The result?

National TV has become a “luxury”. And when things are going badly, one cuts the “luxury”… At TVLowCost, all the contrary, we believe that national TV can be, and MUST be, the most affordable advertising for every advertiser. And we have built a completely new and different approach, in order to “cut the costs” of TV advertising!

Why not meeting the CEO of our TVLowCost agency in your country, you will rapidly discover that with TVLowCost, you can, in the same time, reduce your advertising expenditures and increase your marketing efficiency.

Sounds impossible? Give us a call…and make your own opinion!

TVLowCost ENTERS US MARKET
Offers A Powerful New Television Advertising Alternative For Cost-Conscious Marketers

TVLowCost, the first independently owned, low cost, quality television advertising network announced today the launch of TVLowCost in the United States, expanding its network to eleven countries throughout the world. In a downturn economy threatened daily by recession, TVLowCost has made television advertising exciting and affordable to its clients through a unique streamlined targeted approach.

TVLowCost USA will offer it’s internationally known, highly successful, All Inclusive TV Pack to US companies. The All Inclusive TV Pack offers the security of a low fixed price of $500,000 for an entire television advertising campaign, and not a single penny more. Through the All Inclusive TV Pack companies are finally able to get more for less. The all inclusive package includes creative development, research, national advertising media, and the complete production of several commercials.

TVLowCost has perfected this approach internationally creating advertising campaigns for such companies as Heinz, Wrangler, Bose, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Unilever. 

“We are excited to introduce our low cost television advertising approach to the United States,” stated Jean-Paul Tréguer, CEO and Founder of the TVLowCost International network, which was launched in Paris, October 2004. “Bloated ad budgets are the first thing companies ‘cut’ in a strained economy.  We offer companies an alternative advertising process infused with quality, speed, efficiency, and value that reach their target audiences. TVLowCost pulls together the best business building attributes of a TV ad campaign, eliminating the excess cost usually associated with traditional High-Cost agencies, while maximizing audience impressions through our unique process.”

TVLowCost creates targeted campaigns, answering the continually changing needs of clients without the itemized add-ons common with other agencies. This is done through its comprehensive, all-inclusive platform which has been perfected through its unique process. TVLowCost works with clients on a project basis, and because of this there is no need to change current agency arrangements.

“Companies have a real need for a low-cost way to reap the benefits of television advertising,” stated Jim Lurie, President, TVLowCost USA. “Similar to how Southwest Airlines, Costco and Amazon.com developed new disruptive business models, TVLowCost revolutionized an
old business model and delivers high-quality, indisputable value and low-cost to advertisers.”

About TVLowCost
TVLowCost is the first independently owned, low cost, quality television advertising network. The company has an international network of more than 110
clients including Heinz, Wrangler, Bose, Ricoh, Daihatsu, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Unilever. With 200 employees located in offices throughout the world, TVLowCost creates targeted television advertising campaigns through a unique streamlined approach.

TVLowCost’s All Inclusive TV Pack offers the security of one low fixed price for a television advertising campaign, and not a single penny more. The all inclusive package, costing $500,000.00 in the U.S. includes creative development, research, national advertising media, and the complete production of several commercials.

The TVLowCost network is currently available in 11 countries across the world, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and most recently the United States of America.

Please visit the TVLowCost Blog at http://tvlowcostusa.wordpress.com/

Media Contact:
Jim Lurie, President
TVLowCost USA
(646) 839-6239
jlurie@tvlowcostusa.com

If you stop advertising during Recession, the risks are high to kill your brand. There is an alternative strategy : adopt TVLowCost “All inclusive TV Pack”…

TVLowCost will easily demonstrate to you that our unique approach of TV advertising will help your brand being seen on TV for less money you can imagine.

Our “All Inclusive TV Pack” contains : the creative development + the shooting of several commercials + a consumer pretesting + IPSOS barometer + media planning and media buying on national TV channels with a high level of GRP’s.Have a look at our international web site and contact our local CEO in one of the 11 countries where we are established…
You will discover that you can “accelerate” during recession times while reducing your marketing expenditures. Interesting perspective, don’t you think so ?

Cost Cutting is nowadays reality. BREAK THE RULES…with TVLowCost you cut marketing budgets, while ameliorating the efficiency of your TV advertising.

Not a single day without reading or hearing that companies are reducing their marketing expenditures, it’s today’s reality and it is highly probable that it will stay like that for a few months…or more.

This is a major opportunity for advertisers to BREAK THE RULES !
It’s when one has “no choice” that one will find new and original solutions, it has always been like that since centuries. It’s the ideal moment to see “what’s new” in the advertising world, it’s the moment to identify new partners who will help your company face this difficult period.

One thing is sure : you cannot do new things with old methods and old advertising partners inside old advertising agency organisations !

TVLowCost is the first and only TV advertising specialist that has adopted the low cost concept for qualitative “tailor made” television campaigns. We bring to advertisers a completely new and fresh approach of television advertising that really cuts the overall costs of developing a TV campaign. We claim and demonstrate in the eleven countries where TVLowCost is established that we make TV advertising affordable, at last.

So if you are a bit “stressed” by the necessity to cut your advertising budget, “de-stress” yourself, we have plenty of arguments that will show you that with a reduced marketing budget you will be much more efficient than with your previous “high cost” advertising agency ! Have a look at our international web site and call our local CEO, he will reassure you completely!

Are you really sure that there are only bad news in this period ?
Are you really sure that the situation is so negative ?
Are you really sure that the only sound thing to do is to keep your current advertising partners ?

Nobody can be happy about the alarming news we read and hear everywhere, for sure, but let us be positive : it is an excellent excuse to become more “creative and open minded” !

When times are difficult, it is the right moment to identify new solutions to cope with them and decide to accelerate when the vast majority of the other brands will start slowing down.

TVLowCost constitutes probably one of the best answers you can find to defend your brand in austerity times, just because we are there to give you MORE FOR LESS…

If you are considering reducing your advertising expenditures, why not studying our approach of TV advertising ?
Why not spending an hour or two with our managers in your country to hear what they can do for your brand ?
If in the last 3 years and a half a little more than 110 advertisers have joined the different TVLowCost offices around the world to benefit from our unique cost-saving method, more than 450 TV commercials have been shot, do you think that this is just because we are “lucky” …

We, at TVLowCost, believe that the costs of TV advertising can be drastically diminished in order to help brands defend their market shares with reduced budgets. We believe in this and we prove that it works !

Ask yourself why brands such as HEINZ, UNILEVER, WRANGLER, BOSE, GOODYEAR, MILTON, RICOH and many others… have chosen us, they must have understood something special about us, no ?

TVLowCost accelerates! Our group opens its 10th subsidiary: TVLowCost USA, based in New York and managed by JIM LURIE. TV advertising becomes affordable in USA, at last !

The American agency, which employs already 10 co-workers, adopts the same method «to make TV advertising affordable, at last “  in the United States.
Have a look at our USA Blog

Since our foundation, we considered international by opening subsidiaries in Germany, UK, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where they meet the same success demonstrating that  we can be ” low cost and high quality ” at the same moment.
In every country, our ” all inclusive TV Packs “ includes : 1 ° the creation, 2 ° the shooting of a saga of TV spots, 3 ° the consumer pre-test, 4 ° brand awareness barometer by IPSOS, 5 ° the media planning and media buying for a solid national campaign.

to know more about our network : TVLowCost

Advertisers, do not panic ! The generalization of the tensions on the costs obliges companies to question all their previous ways of management. In TV advertising , the economic approach of TVLowCost allows to restore  the ” Marketing Purchasing Power ” of companies.

When TVLowCost opened its doors, three and a half years ago, the advertising industry roared and declared in a peremptory and definitive way : ” this will never work! ” The argumentation developed in a certain number of interviews by the big bosses of traditional advertising agencies, demonstrated that the cost of the ” All inclusive TV Pack for 250 000 euros” was simply ridiculous and impossible … 

It is true that the advertising  industry  is always strangely traditionalist and conformist!

Our intuition was right : numerous companies did not go to television, simply because the “ticket of entry “ was inaccessible for them. Today, the inflationary pressure that every company undergoes on its costs of supply, the spectacular rise of the weight of the distribution, the emergence of delocalized competitors, all this encourage companies to re-study from top to bottom their structures of costs.

Today’s name of the game is : “savings”! Today is the time to work with the only TV agency specialist of savings : TVLowCost!

With regard to this new context, it is cristal clear that the traditional ” high cost ” advertising agencies are very badly adapted to the new economic environment. It is not so easy to pass from a model to the other one … 

That’s why, among others reason, TVLowCost knows such a success with all the typologies of advertisers, because we allow each of them to reduce their marketing costs in a important way. By reducing the costs of TV advertising we allow our clients to improve their overall profitability, and this is very useful nowadays!

TVLowCost will save every drop of your marketing budget to make TV advertising affordable, at last!

TV Production costs … yes, that hairy old issue. Truth is: even today the Ad Industry still does itself and Clients injustices with “high-cost” TV Production. Too many ad agencies still seem to ignore the Budget, and deliver back OTT costs complete with a bewildering array of excuses. Too much smoke and mirrors, and perhaps a few selfish agendas rather than brands’ results and returns (awards, awards, awards…)

Stories still abound from Clients with either damaging first-hand experiences, or others having suffered the dire consequences of poor budgeting. Still rife! Forced to accept higher-than-expected costs, they inevitably take it from the Media … 4 months later and no apparent lifts anywhere the Board loses faith in the campaign, its possibly cut and …  ’put down to experience’. The TV medium is written off too, and alternative low-profile options resumed. A shame … for the brand, the Client, ad agency, TV itself and the Industry. All too typical even today … 

At TVLowCost we have an altogether different “LOW-COST” pioneering approach. We do stick to the budget. And only return with  work that we can deliver for the same.

BUT … way before that, we have wisely ’packaged’ up ALL elements for a complete TV Shoot in ONE all-in TV Package, representing the Best Value possible. That’s all preparation + the Shoot itself [we average 3/4 commercials per project] + all editing/post-prod + transmission costs. Add to that the huge $$ benefits of us containing ALL facilities IN-HOUSE – rather than use the typical array of additional specialist suppliers outside of the main Prod Company [all on high margins, naturellement] – and you ‘ll appreciate the precision, practicality, and cost-effectiveness of our remarkable proposition.

Our proposition? a fixed amount for a complete on-air TV campaign. Including full management, Creative, Group Discussion to check out the Ideas, the Shoot itself plus all editing/post-prod, transmission costs, v/o and music … then a pre-Omnibus check.  AND … including a fully-tailored National Peak and Off-Peak TV Schedule which will certainly ‘punch above its weight’ with sufficient Impact, Coverage and Frequency to register. We will be on-air 8 weeks [no, not 8 months] from agreed Brief. Food for thought …?

And Results? We are consistently delivering Results that “exceed expectations”. When most of our ex-TV Clients then go on to re-book further TV bursts – many being on their 3rd within 18 months after payback from the first burst alone – it’s all the proof we need for our efficacy. And with 110 clients and 450 commercials in 3 years from a wide range of Clients, all cynics have run for cover from the pure consistency of our positive returns.

TVLowCost’s mission is to simply to get deserving Challenger Brands onto TV, quickly, creatively, effectively and in the most cost-efficient way. And then yield Results that “exceed expectations”. With most spend going INTO THE MEDIA.

Do your brand a favour and call our branch in your country ! You will discover how affordable can TV advertising become under the influence of TVLowCost!

Yes, “Affordable TV advertising” can generate excellent Return On Investment ! 

This is the issue everywhere. Every advertiser knows that TV advertising is the most efficient way to boost one’s business. No discussion. But, how many can afford national TV advertising ? Since decades television channels, traditional “high cost” media agencies and advertising agencies have made everything to put in the advertiser’s minds that TV is a fabulous media, BUT, that they need a lot of money to get in.

Because they MUST be on Prime Time, because they MUST shoot their TV commercial in an exotic location, because they MUST do it in 35mm, because they MUST pay monthly fees during several months to the ad agency to elaborate the creation, etc.

At the end of the day, many advertisers say “TV advertising is not for me, too expensive”… and they invest in other less efficient and powerful medias.

In every business, low cost pioneers have demonstrated that there was a way to do things differently and reduce spectacularly the costs of things without losing quality. They show that inexpensive does not necessarily mean “cheap” or “poor quality”. They have created new business models from scratch, new working methods much more efficient, new team mentalities. They have demonstrated that a large number of customers (also including B to B clients) are ready to pay much less to get “the function without the frills”.

Television advertising needed a revolution. It was more expensive every year despite audiences fragmentations, despite new shooting cameras, despite travel cost reductions…

TVLowCost is born because too many clients are unable to get on TV with the traditional “high cost” agencies. TVLowCost “All inclusive TV Packs” changes completely the relation with advertisers. They know that, for a fixed amount in each country where we are, EVERYTHING is included :

“GET MORE. WORRY LESS”

No bad surprise, no additional costs. Our clients discover a very different kind of TV advertising agency :

An agency focussed on sales efficiency and not on winning new “creative awards and chocolate medals”.

An agency working hard to reduce the delays, in order to save money, and not taking months to elaborate a TV campaign.

An agency where clients are treated as partners to conceive the most economical campaign, and not only as “cash machines”…

“GET MORE WITH LESS” is our commitment to our clients, our international “Mot d’Ordre”!

TVLowCost’s unique approach to “affordable TV advertising” also adds further campaign impact too! 

You likely know the theory of the “last metre”, developed by many Design, Packaging and SP specialists. This shows the vital importance of “product visibility in-store” so that consumers, with only a few seconds spare, will see and hopefully grab your brand and not competitors.
TVLowCost believes a similar theory applies to TV advertising: the “Last 60 minutes” theory. Whilst avoiding Peak Terrestrial airtime for cost and wastage reasons - priorising TV commercials in a tailored combination of Off-peak and Peak Terrestrial/MCH -  we make it possible for Clients to advertise their brands only minutes before consumers are in the shops. Better for purchasing, right?

This tangible “proximity to purchase” will undoubtedly also benefit brand sales when considering that consumers are hit, they say, by 5000 brand messages a day! Hard to believe, but true.  Studies undertaken by ROBERT HEATH in the UK clearly show the reality of this “carpet bombing”. By “commercial messages”, we are talking all forms of advertising of course but also the thousands of logos that surround us in our [mostly] city lives. 

ROBERT HEATH demonstrated the importance of what he calls LOW INVOLVEMENT PROCESSING (LIP). Namely, that our brains – consciously or subconsciously - record ALL such information, there being “no dustbin” function as such. It simply arranges this information in different “baskets”…

Eg. If a consumer is seeking a foot cream, information acquired will pop to the surface of her mind whereas info on cars – not on her shopping list – will not. 

This “Last 60 minutes” theory is also supported by dozens of  TVLowCost campaigns across our   network. We can also demonstrate that the “affordable TV advertising” that we create can really deliver remarkable business Results!

This theory is actually just common sense … in an ad agency world where obsession for “Peak only” should have come off the rails a long time ago!

“When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.”

Here we are, recession seems to be very pobable in front of us in the vast majority of countries. All the reasons seem to be joined to create a slow down in many markets. Many companies will start reducing their marketing expenditures in order to save money and try to keep a normal level of profitability. Every sound manager knows it is not a good decision to stop advertising, but “what else can I do ?” will they say… It is not so easy to maintain the same level of advertising investement when you know that your billing will probably be reduced in the months to come.

In a famous study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies from 1980-1985. The results showed that Firms that Maintained or Increased their Advertising Expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession Averaged Significantly Higher Sales growth, both during the recession and for the following three years, than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. By 1985, sales of companies that were Aggressive Recession Advertisers had Risen 256% over those that didn’t keep up their advertising. In addition, a series of six studies conducted by the research firm of Meldrum & Fewsmith  (below) showed conclusively that Advertising Aggressively during Recessions not only Increases Sales but Increases Profits.

(source: Meldrum & Fewsmith)

Plenty of evidence demonstrate this, but, I still hear many advertisers saying :  “OK, I agree on this, but I cannot afford the costs of advertising on TV in this moment ?”

Well, then it’s time for you to change your habits and quit the world of “HIGH COST” TV advertising, and discovering that with TVLowCost, TV advertising is not only affordable, but also very efficient, for budgets several times inferior to what you used to pay! With the power of TV advertising to boost your business.

Recession should be the opportunity to adopt a “Low Cost Attitude” in TV advertising.

I am reading a very interesting book in this moment. Called “AD LAND, A global history of advertising”, by Mark Tungate. It helps us going back to what the pioneers of our industry have made and said. Big Names such as BILL BERNBACH, or ROSSER REEVES, the inventor of the “USP” (Unique Selling Proposition) and, of course, DAVID OGILVY. It also make you understand that those people were not in advertising with the sole objective of winning awards in the numerous creative Grand Prix… Something many advertising executives of nowadays should remember!

I have probably read more than ten times, since I am in advertising, the fabulous book “OGILVY ON ADVERTISING” it really helped me to define the concept of TVLowCost. Let me quote one or two of his sentences:

“A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.”

“I do not regard advertising as entertainment or art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said : “Let us march against Philip”.

He also quoted several times his old friend ROSSER REEVES who said : “Do you want fine writing? Do you want masterpieces ? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve start moving up ?”

All his life long, DAVID OGILVY repeated the same message : “SELL OR ELSE”

We, at TVLowCost strongly believe that our only mission when we do a TV advertising campaign for any of our clients is that one. Nothing to add!

When a company decides to “accelerate”, it must, one day or another, communicate on television. No big success can “escape” investing on TV advertising. Television advertising has a long record of efficiency. All the big brands we know in any category built their business by a strong presence on the TV screens.

But, television advertising is not as simple as some other forms of brand communication. It can generate high investments and create BIG successes or BIG failures… Because the costs involved tend to rapidly become heavy for the company.

This is why we believe that advertisers should be very careful about the choice of their advertising partner when they want to invest on television advertising.

Let us do an analogy. When you have, let’s imagine, a “heart problem”, do you tend to visit your family doctor or the cardiologist? Well, of course, when it is a serious health issue, you will logically go to the SPECIALIST…

We believe that for any brand, going on TV is a very important decision; it will “change” the size and image of the company. Going on television, the “KING OF MEDIAS”, necessitates a very careful approach of it in order to be successful.  And today, one will also add another dimension: it has to cost the minimum money possible, because times are tough and every marketing manager or general manager has to spend money very carefully!

This is why we strongly believe that a 100% SPECIALIST “TV advertising agency” such as TVLowCost is the RIGHT ANSWER for clients willing to go on TV and willing to save money!

Except in USA, where the size of the market is so different, in the vast majority of the countries where TVLowCost is established, the “regular” advertising agencies only shoot a few commercials per year. The Top Ten will shoot 30 or 40 per year. 

Let us take an example, when at TVLowCost in Paris; we have shot 150 commercials in 2007 and will probably achieve 170 this year. In the last 3 years and a half TVLowCost has shot 420 TV commercials. Very few agencies in our markets can compete with those numbers.

So when you are looking for an agency to bring you efficiently on TV and to help you saving a lot of money, why not giving our local TVLowCost agency a phone call?

In health issues as well as TV advertising, a specialist will always give you better advice than a “generalist”!

Anyone can find different ways of selling cheaper without making a loss.

But you do need that will-power, and most ad agencies won’t even give it a try. In truth most advertising agencies priorise awards : look at how “mad” they are to show you the Gold Lions they have won in Cannes Festival, right from the entrance of their splendid headquarters!

To be sure to come back from their annual trip to the french riviera with some “Lions”, they try to convince their clients to accept expensive production costs to gain that ultimate prestige, despite the pressures of today’s economic reality. So shooting is in 35mm, in South Africa or Argentina, with the last “à la mode” director who has been awarded in the recent festivals, and of course, he works in exclusivity with a production company. And everybody explains to the client that there is NO other solution to do this commercial!

Whatever the climate, whatever the difficulties of the client, some seem to have their heads well and truly planted in the sand.

But not all brands can afford such high-rolling attitudes [and good luck to those that can] since their scales and lower experience with Media generally make them more cautious. Happily, for all brands tip-toeing around TV for the first time – perhaps some lapsed TV ones too – and for smaller brands in larger company portfolios, there is another way … TVLowCost

Why « democratising » television advertising is a top priority for brands everywhere in the world ?

Because TV it is the most efficient medium.

It is television that makes certain brands world famous, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsico, l’Oréal or the products from Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Henkel, …  Television is the perfect impact medium. In 2008 television is watched by the general public all over the world on an  average of more than 3h30 everyday. 

73% of our free time is spent watching television ! In just a few days a brand can be shown to millions of potential clients.  Early in the morning or even in the middle of the night or at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, there are hundreds of thousands of viewers watching TV programs.  To apply « Low Cost » to television advertising is to democratise it and make it available to all advertisers who need it to build their reputation and boost their sales to defend their position in the market.
The « TVLowCost All-included Packs » : a Revolution that meets the needs of advertisers everywhere.

For 250 000 €, 100 000 € or 200 000 £, according to the countries where we are established, TVLowCost agencies allow advertisers to broadcast a minimum 100 TV commercials on national televisions contacting millions of consumers with high level of repetition !  Knowing that usually this is just the cost of producing the ad .

Let me give you an example : in 2008 the average budget to produce a TV spot in France is 250 000 €. 250 000 € is also the cost of 3 TV spots of 30 seconds at 8 o’clock PM in the evening on the main channels in the different markets.… Compare for yourself : ask to your HIGH COST agency how much it would cost to produce and broadcast an advertising campaign in comparable conditions…

Is low cost Tv a cheap and low quality TV advertising ?

The spots proposed by TVLowCost are real television commercials, it has nothing to do with “home shopping spots” or certain cheap TV commercials that can be found on cable television channels.  There is no worry either of ‘outdated’ advertising messages which could be dangerous for the brand image. 

Our TV commercials are shot by very demanding and experienced directors.  The “TVLowCost All-included packs” have demonstrated in every market the efficiency of short formats, such as 12, 10 or even 8 seconds. Is a 10 or 8 second TV spot too short ?  Not that short : at a normal pace of 3 words a second you can say between 24 to 30 words.  Whereas billboards work with only four or five words.

A 8 or 10 second spot will “get to the point”, it is a guarantee to concentrate on the essential, the famous « USP” Unique Selling Proposition ». Short means less expensive and more television commercials broadcasted, thus the brand has more possibilities to repeat its message to the consumers. Never forget that …

REPETITION CREATES REPUTATION !

The ideal solution for challengers or secondary brands belonging to global companies. TVLowCost « democratises » TV advertising by giving access to the “king of the medias” to advertisers who do not have huge marketing budgets. 

2 types of advertisers are particularly concerned : small businesses and challenger brands who need television to “boost” their consumer demand otherwise they risk to be « ejected » from the retailers.  And large global groups who cannot support each of their local brands with large media expenditures.  Instead of focussing exclusively on promotion to support their secondary brands, they can keep up their brand awareness and top of mind presence thanks to TV. 

Nowadays, all over the world, many advertisers have to reduce their advertising budget to “absorb the shock” of the dropping prices. With TVLowCost, these brands are able to continue their appearances on television.

By reducing the necessary budgets to go on TV drastically (by 4 to 5 times what advertisers usually pay), TVLowCost offers a credible solution for thousands of advertisers exhausted by the relationship with their traditional HIGH COST ad agencies!

Stop the creative ayatollahs and dictators!

With this blog, we risk losing the last friends we’ve kept in the world of traditional high cost advertising agencies. It’s not too serious…they’ll get over it and so will we!

What we’re going to describe is obviously biased. Clearly, all advertising agencies are not to be put “in the same basket”! Nonetheless, a number of advertisers have this type of relationship with their agencies on a daily basis; they know who they are…

What is fascinating for anyone who observes this world with a critical eye is the propensity of advertising agency practitioners to consider that they are “always right”. The creative team “knows” what the consumer wants to hear and knows better than anyone what’s happening in the consumer’s mind! Consequently, there is no question of putting forward the slightest criticism of the creative idea, the text or the layout used…or, worse, the size of the logo! (for, of course, the logo shown on the model is often minuscule and in a corner…)

Immediately, the “poor client” finds himself facing a creative team member who’s going to defend his project “tooth and nail” without tolerating the slightest change to his “creative work” (which should get nothing but applause and hurrahs). And what should be a normal discussion meeting of a few minutes between two partners becomes a psychodrama in which the client must beg to be kindly offered an alternative at the next meeting…(if it’s not asking too much?)
This incredible nerve is sometimes excusable, or at least a bit “explainable”, when you’re dealing with experienced creative directors who know the category of products in question particularly well. By dint of designing campaigns for various food brands, you end up knowing some of the effectiveness triggers for food advertising messages, and the same thing goes for cosmetics, cars etc.

The “hiccup” occurs when this attitude, on the part of the creative ayatollahs (by ayatollah, we mean “absolute rejection of criticism”), is not limited to a few seniors in the creative department but is a “culture” shared by most advertising agencies’ creative departments.

The consequence is, alas, predictable: how many times a day do you have the impression that you don’t understand anything in the TV commercials that you see on your screen?
 
How many times do you ask yourself who can these billboards, these classified ads, these commercials be aimed at? How many times do you say that, obviously, everything’s happening too quickly for you and that there, you were “really cast adrift”…Don’t worry, you’re not the only one to react this way to the TV commercials; there are hundreds and thousands of us, indeed millions, every night.

You know what the problem is? In a lot of advertising agencies, nobody gives a damn about you understanding the product or buying just about you talking about it and noticing it – which I am sorry does not lead to sales!

What counts is that the creative team who make these ads find them “faaan-taas-tic”!!!

Furthermore, when the prize winners’ season arrives, a deluge of awards (Grands Prix, Golden Lions, Silver Lions, Bronze Lions etc) rains down on this kind of impenetrable commercial from the Art Directors’ Club, the Cannes International Festival of Advertising Film and a few other “chocolate medals” issued by judging panels of professionals who engage in self-congratulation while “returning the favour” to each other from one year to the next.

Moreover, even creative teams are aware of the “impenetrable excess” they have sunk into to get a chance of coming back crowned from Cannes. In this respect, listen to what was said by a “star of French creative talent”, the secretary-general of the very influential Art Directors’ Club, Gabriel Gaultier, also CEO of the Leg agency, a very fashionable agency:

“French advertising’s conformism is especially prompted by the race for international awards, which is logical and not harmful in itself, just harmful in its consequences if we limit ourselves to this cryptic language which still works in Cannes.”  

Ah Mr Gaultier, we fully agree with you!

You think we exaggerate? Well, OK, a little but basically not all that much. You only have to look at the repeated results, year after year, of studies and investigations that measure the advertisers’ degree of satisfaction with advertising agencies to realise to what extent advertisers complain of the excesses and extravagances of advertising campaigns that are too often disconnected from consumer “realities”, expectations and levels of understanding.

The advertising agency sector has been in a deep and lasting credibility crisis vis-à-vis advertisers for many long years, and bit by bit advertisers are getting rid of entire areas of their agencies’ services: space buying, then media planning; more and more communication strategy is withdrawn from agencies and entrusted instead to large consulting firms (ie in the USA)…
 
The real question that has to be asked from now on is as follows:
how long will creative design remain in the hands of traditional advertising practitioners?

What’s the use of driving a Ferrari if you have no money for the petrol ?

Let us imagine that “At Last”, you’ve finally agreed with your agency’s creative team, they’ve made a step (oh, a very small one…and often with bad grace) in your direction and you’ve made several towards them (because after all, the advertisement has to come out!).

Your campaign is ready to be filmed. The great moment arrives: you’re going to launch production of your TV commercial… This section of the collaboration that’s beginning with your agency will be particularly important for the campaign’s success; this is where it must not fail! You also risk discovering the extent of the dramatisation that some agencies deliberately organise around this stage of the work.

Well then, let’s set out on an imaginary voyage, as children say:

“Let’s say you’re an advertiser and you have a meeting with your advertising agency”…

First of all, you’ll discover that there is only a single director (generally English, American or Japanese) who can bring your advertising script to life suitably and with talent. The fact that this director was recently awarded one or two Golden Lions at the Cannes Festival obviously has nothing to do with the fact he’s been thought of; it’s mere chance. Besides, on screening his “tape”, you can judge his talent for yourself (“Yes, of course, but how much does he cost???”).

Of course, as he has immense talent, a truly innovative vision of the job, very modern and different ideas on the way to shoot (which guarantees that your film will “stand out” strongly in the advertising slots), and surrounds himself with a team of loyal international assistants that he requires with him, he is “exclusively” with a production studio. (“Er, what does that mean?”, you wonder.)

Oh, not much, he is slightly dearer than the budget discussed, but he has “such power in dealing with images and such good direction of actors” that it would really be a pity not to choose him. And then he’s under exclusive contract to one of the biggest commercial production houses in NY or London or Sydney, which also absolutely guarantees an exceptional result. Besides, let’s have a look together at some of the advertising masterpieces shot by this production studio…(“Yes, that’s true, I acknowledge that these ads are famous, but…”)

As for the shoot, he had a fantastic idea, really nice, to shoot the script in Argentina where we’re certain to have sun all year round. Because it’s not easy to find guaranteed sun in October, is it?  (“Yes, but on the other hand, is it really necessary to shoot it so far away? The scene still takes place in the garden of a suburban family house with mum, dad and their two children around the table, doesn’t it?)

Oh, yes, there too, he really “enhanced the storyboard” by suggesting that this scene, which was really too ordinary, be situated in a nature reserve to better express the “potent naturalness” of your product. Moreover, the agency retorts, Argentina is renowned for the quality of its film production crews and then…”it’s no more expensive to shoot there than here”! “Oh really, and what about the trip to get there???”

You know, this director has real mastery of 35 mm which he uses with a Steadycam and we guarantee you that it will really be seen in the image “rendering”!

“What? You’re shooting in 35 mm! But that’s a lot dearer than video, isn’t it?” But, come on, you can’t compare the sharpness of 35 mm with a digital image,…

For the rest of the dialogue, we no longer have a recording; when the agency showed you the production estimate, suddenly your … vision blurred and you lost consciousness…

Any resemblance between this scene and real persons is obviously purely accidental and the result of chance.

Most of the ads shot by production houses are still shot in 35 mm format (you know, the format of cameras with “Mickey Mouse ears”, which are still used to make feature films, because these films are shown in cinemas and need an image with substantial sharpness.)

At this stage, it’s worth pointing something out: on TV, no consumer is able to distinguish between a well-shot digital video (high definition or not) and a well shot 35 mm film…

The only difference, (oh, peanuts), is that the bill will be increased by 30 to 40% for exactly the same script (and a rendering that is frankly very close). The equipment is expensive to rent, the 35 mm raw stock is frightfully expensive, then it has to be converted to video for the editing which is done in digital form, you need camera operators and assistants who are expert in 35 mm, much more powerful lighting than with video, bigger power generators etc.

Here, too, you might wonder for what really objective reason traditional advertising agency creative teams still routinely want to use this format which costs their clients so much more? The progress in digital image capture is getting more impressive each day. You may or may not know Jean-Jacques Annaud’s film, “Two Brothers”, was entirely filmed in high definition digital video, so that these little cameras could get as close as possible to the tigers without danger to the camera operators. His film was shown on the biggest cinemas screens arounfd the world, without anyone saying, “Oh, dear, there’s a clarity problem and the image is too grainy…”

Ultimately, that’s how we get soaring ad production budgets.
Perhaps all that doesn’t matter too much if you are an international major brand and your commercials are shown, and thus paid off, in several countries. When L’Oréal, Levi’s, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, and others like Coca-Cola or Nestlé shoot a commercial for the entire world, production often accounts for relatively little in the purchase of space. But not everyone belongs to this “club of world tenors”; not everyone is present in prime time from January to December on the major channels of every country with media budgets of tens of millions of dollars…

In the economic battle to conquer consumers’ attention, it’s essential to maximise occasions to contact the target audience so you have an opportunity to make it think of you. If your agency spends a big portion of your available media budget just for the TV production, let us make a sporting analogy…
 
What’s the use of having a Ferrari if you haven’t got the means to run it on the racing circuit?

At TVLowCost, we love this picture, just for the fun!

It really makes us think about TVLowCost facing the big global “high cost” advertising networks.

When we did open our doors in 2004, all the industry said : “ridiculous”, “impossible”, “it will never work”… 3 years and a half after, everywhere, our TVLowCost agencies beat regularly the big players and attract their clients … no more willing to pay their outrageous tariffs!

So… apparently, there is a BIG NEED among advertisers to break the rules and the prices of TV advertising!

We do believe that there is room for two kind of ad’ agencies : the “low cost” and the “high cost” ones.  

Advertisers it’s your choice!