How to do TV commercials? Reshaping brand influence in modern media environment

When the term 'television advertisement' appears before your eyes, do you think it belongs to the past tense? In today's era where algorithmic push and short videos dominate attention, a fundamental question lies before us: how can TV advertising be made to surpass the value of "expensive exposure" and become a strategic investment driving brand growth? The real answer is not to give up television, but to re harness the unique power of this "centralized media" with new strategies, integrated perspectives, and refined means. This article will break down a complete practical system from strategic insights to performance tracking, allowing you to understand why top brands never leave and learn how to scientifically make TV advertising work for your brand.

Step 1: Disrupting Cognition - Why Do We Still Do TV Advertisements Today?
Before discussing 'how to do it', it is necessary to re-establish a correct understanding of the value of television advertising. Its core advantages have been highlighted in the era of fragmentation:
The irreplaceable endorsement of trust and the shaping power of social consensus: As authoritative media, the credibility of national and provincial top TV stations will directly transfer to advertising brands, which is the "fast lane" to establish public trust. A successful CCTV placement is itself a powerful brand statement.
Efficient sensory impact and emotional narrative ability: The combination of large screens and high-quality sound and image is the best carrier for telling brand stories, creating emotional atmosphere, and showcasing product details. A 60 second moving story with emotional depth far exceeding the 15 second fragments of information flow.
Shared deep communication in family settings: The living room screen is a rare media scene for family members to watch and discuss together, which can simultaneously influence multiple decision-makers in family consumption, especially suitable for bulk consumption such as automobiles, home furnishings, and tourism.
The precise possibility brought by digital evolution: Today's "television" has surpassed traditional cable and includes intelligent large screens such as IPTV and OTT. They have partially addressable, interactive, and trackable digital capabilities, allowing TV advertising to also move towards "precision".
Therefore, the starting point for thinking about "how to do TV advertising" should be how to combine these unique advantages with your brand strategy goals.
Step 2: Four Steps to Build Your TV Advertising Campaign
A professional TV advertisement placement is a systematic project that is interconnected.
Stage 1: Strategic Insights and Goal Definition - Everything Starts with 'Why'
This is the first step that determines success or failure, and it must be answered clearly:
Core objective: Is it to launch a new brand or reshape the image of an old brand? Is it to promote a specific product or to coordinate with a large-scale promotion?
Target audience: Who are your core users? When and with whom do they watch TV? What type of program do you watch? (For example, young parents watch animation channels with their children at night; business people watch financial news on weekends.)
Key message: What is the single core message you most want to convey to consumers? (It must be simple enough to be explained in one sentence.)
Success criteria: How to measure success? Is it the increase in brand awareness research data, the surge in official website traffic, or the incoming volume of hotline calls during promotional periods?
Stage 2: Creative Production - Transforming Strategy into "Attraction"
Creativity is the carrier of strategy, and good TV advertising creativity follows the following rules:
The first 3 seconds determine life and death: It is necessary to grab the audience in front of the remote control with strong visual, sound, or dramatic conflict within 3 seconds to avoid being instantly switched channels.
Focus on a single message: Within 60 seconds, only talk about one thing, one selling point. Information complexity equals invalidity.
Triggering emotional resonance: Whether it's humor, warmth, inspiration, or shock, emotions are the adhesive of memories. Rational persuasion is left to the product manual, while advertising is responsible for moving people's hearts.
Strengthening brand identity: Cleverly and repeatedly incorporating brand logos, slogans, and visual symbols (such as specific colors and melodies) into the plot to establish brand assets.
Adapt to different time versions: Prepare multiple versions of 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds, or even shorter to meet the purchasing needs of different time periods and budgets.
Stage Three: Media Placement - Precise "Time Space" Art
This is the core link of budget consumption, which requires scientific planning:
Channel selection: Match target audience. Children's products are invested in Cartoon TV, luxury goods are invested in high-end documentary or financial channels, and mass consumer goods are invested in top tier variety shows or TV theaters of comprehensive TV stations.
Time slot purchase:
Prime time (e.g. 19:00-22:00): high ratings, concentrated family audience, most expensive prices, suitable for brand image advertising.
Specific time periods (such as daytime theaters, late night programs): Targeting specific groups of people (such as housewives, night shift workers), the cost-effectiveness may be higher.
Program Title/Special Offer: Deeply bound to a popular program, the brand and content are deeply integrated, and the memory is extremely high.
Frequency planning: Ensure effective outreach. Overly sparse advertising cannot form memory, and it is necessary to plan a reasonable exposure frequency within the budget (usually, core audiences should see it more than 3 times within a campaign period).
Integrating digital outdoor and creating a three-dimensional surround: The widespread recognition established by television advertising requires high-frequency prompts that are contextualized to consolidate and transform. This is precisely where the value of scenario media such as subway TV advertising (reaching commuters), airport TV advertising (influencing high-end business travelers), and cabin TV advertising (targeting long-distance travelers) lies. They can form a three-dimensional communication network with home TV advertisements, combining "extensive family awareness+outdoor scene reminders", extending brand influence from the living room to every key corner of the city.
Stage 4: Effect Tracking and Optimization - Making Investment Visible
The evaluation of the effectiveness of modern television advertising goes far beyond just ratings reports:
Traditional indicators: ratings (GRP), reach rate, frequency.
Brand research: Conduct brand awareness and favorability surveys before and after advertising to quantify changes in brand assets.
Immediate feedback: implant unique interactive instructions in advertisements, such as "search XX keywords", "follow XX official account to receive discounts", and track real-time changes in online traffic.
Sales linkage: Based on the promotion cycle, analyze product sales or e-commerce platform search data during and after the advertising period.
Step 3: Avoid the Three Common Misconceptions
Misconception 1: Creativity is king, strategy is lacking. They blindly pursue high-end images and celebrities, but the audience cannot remember the brand and do not know the purpose of the product after watching it. Creativity must serve a clear business strategy.
Misconception 2: Blindly pursuing exposure, neglecting precision and integration. Only buy the most expensive prime time slots, but your target users may not even watch programs during that time slot. Meanwhile, viewing television advertisements as isolated placements without integrating and interacting with outdoor digital media such as subway television advertisements and social media has wasted opportunities to ignite topics and guide conversions.
Misconception 3: Once and for all, lack of testing and optimization. It takes three years to shoot an advertisement, and the market and consumers have already changed. Small scale testing (such as testing different creative versions on different regional channels) should be used to optimize creative and media plans based on data feedback.
Step 4: Professional Path: How to Start Efficiently?
Television advertising involves creativity, production, complex media purchasing, and post evaluation, with a high professional threshold. For most businesses, collaborating with professional organizations is a wise choice.
Tianci Media is a professional television advertising placement company, whose value lies in providing integrated solutions:
Integration of Strategy and Creativity: From front-end market insights to creative scripts and film production, providing full chain services to ensure precise implementation of strategies.
Cross media integration planning: It can not only plan traditional TV advertising, but also collaborate with outdoor video media resources such as airport TV advertising and subway TV advertising, providing a one-stop, scene based integrated communication solution.
Refined media procurement and effect guarantee: Based on data analysis and long-term experience, we purchase cost-effective media combinations and provide professional effect monitoring and closure reports.
Conclusion: TV advertising is the cornerstone of brand building rather than blind advertising
In summary, how to do television advertising? The answer lies in repositioning it as the 'core ballast stone' in integrated marketing communication.
It is no longer an isolated, one-way exposure tool, but a strategic pivot that can quickly establish widespread trust, shape brand emotions, and closely collaborate with touchpoints such as digital outdoor and social media. Its success depends on whether it can steer with clear strategies, sail with captivating creativity, navigate with precise integrated media plans, and ultimately sail towards the shore of long-term brand value growth.
When you use this systematic thinking to plan, television advertising will no longer be a daunting budget black hole, but will become one of the few deterministic forces that can "make a final decision" and establish your brand image in a noisy market environment.