We ran a post a few weeks back about why advertising with Perez Hilton makes more sense than advertising on TV. It was meant to be tongue in cheek — and focused on his site because it garners so much traffic, but obviously the Web’s major players are a good bet for ad spends if their content jives with your clientele. Well, Nielsen sorta rebuked us (though certainly inadvertently) when they announced after the Oscars that more people are watching TV than ever before, so it’s still a good medium. But then we learned Hilton sucked up 14 million views in a single day — also due to the Oscars.
First things first. Is it any surprise that a company (Nielsen) whose major role and money making power comes from TV ratings published a report stating that TV is still a viable medium? Awfully convenient. Maybe we should say it’s oddly convenient. Either way, that’s what they said, and good for them.
A report from August 2008 says it costs $54,000 per day to advertise with Perez. How much does a 30 second spot during Idol cost? Oh yeah, and it only plays for 30 seconds, once. And oh yeah, your ad stays up on Perez’s site for 24 hours where all 8 million of his regular readers will see it.
Sorry, we rehash too much. The point is that although people are watching TV, we should remember that 14 million is a huge number. Just remember it.
And another thing — the majority of the news coverage regarding Nielsen’s ground-breaking report focused on the portion saying more people are watching TV. Have we considered the fact that in the last 12 months, a ridiculous number of “consumers” have been laid off from work and are all sitting at home watching TV? Or maybe the TV is on while they surf gossip sites or upload resumes. So, sure they are watching — but they’d probably not be if their job hadn’t been cut, and since they’re just scraping buy, they won’t be buying anything anyway.
More: “Why Advertising on Perez Hilton Beats the Hell Outta TV”