INTERVIEW:
FTA: More Than Mass

You don't need to be Einstein to figure out that FTA TV is the best medium for advertisers to reach both the mass Australian community and the many segmented audiences that make up the country's population. Just ask J. Boag & Son, one of the country's leading premium beer brands.

Boags will increase its media spend to $3m per annum after research showed their TVC of last year had significantly grown brand awareness in the $5bn beer category.

"We hadn't previously used TV for our premium brands," said J. Boag & Son's Sales & Marketing Director, Lyndon Adams. "But now we are going to use it more, having grown our share of the market by nearly 20 per cent.
"The results were attributable to the increased reach of FTA TV and our strong, impactful creative," continued Lyndon.

Lyndon's media strategy deliberately chose programs and time slots to effectively target segmented as opposed to mass audiences.

"We were targeting a small proportion of programs with appeal to our target audience," he said.

Boags' new campaign will target Seven's 24 and Boomtown and Nine's CSI, as well as specific Sunday night movies that it believes will appeal to its target audiences.

When asked what he believes the strengths of FTA TV are for advertisers, Lyndon points to, "Its reach and the flexibility it has to communicate a more involved message."

It is the prime-time TV series that Lyndon believes are a key USP for FTA and what audiences find most engaging. This, and the plethora of original programming it features, provides it with a distinct advantage over the repeat-plagued Pay TV.

Live sport, news, kids TV, drama, movies and comedy are all part of the commercial FTA package and this is sometimes overlooked due to the sheer size of its normal, everyday audiences.

This is not a trap that Boags are falling into.

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