Broadcasters Must Embrace Smart Advertising to Compete With Rise in US Spending on Mobile Advertising

While TV Remains Biggest Avenue of Spending for Marketers, Digital ads, Especially Mobile Advertising is on the Rise With an Increase of 76 per cent in 2014 to $12.5bn

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Powa Technologies

Apr 23, 2015, 08:59 ET

NEW YORK, April 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Combined US broadcast and cable ad revenues were down from $74.5bn in 2013 to $65.7bn in 2014^[1]. With digital set to hit 36 per cent of all advertising spend by 2019, taking the top spot from TV for the first time, broadcasters must embrace new smart advertising technology if they are to remain relevant in the digital age.

Powa Technologies Logo (PRNewsFoto/Powa Technologies)

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Analyst group Forrester predicts that digital spending will reach $103bn within the next four years, compared to $85.8bn for TV, a market share of 30 per cent^[2]. Analysts have cited the ability to directly measure the results of campaigns as a primary reason for the change, especially in search advertising.

Despite the predicted shift however, TV will remain a driving force in advertising, and brands will spend more than $79m on the medium this year - 42 per cent of all spending.^[3] With such a vast amount being spent on TV ads, Dan Wagner, CEO and Founder of Powa Technologies, believes advertisers must seek out new technology to ensure their campaigns stay effective.

He said: "Brands are flocking to digital advertising because it offers a level of interaction and accountability not seen in other more passive mediums. Broadcast has long guaranteed a huge mass audience, but businesses are effectively walking in the dark, with only the loose correlation of viewing figures and sales uplift to go by when judging ROI.

"Smart advertising is the key to broadcasters avoiding obsolescence, enabling viewers to immediately interact with adverts in real time directly, unlocking rich customer engagement opportunities as the ad is playing, rather than leaving it to chance that they will remember later."

To meet this need, Powa Technologies' acclaimed mobile commerce platform PowaTag enables brands to transform advertising in any medium into an instant transaction point that can be engaged through a smartphone. Users can scan the screen or simply hold their phones up to recognize specialised audio tags, allowing them to instantly complete anything from purchases and donations to entering competitions and requesting product information.

With 66 per cent of Americans now regularly 'second-screening'^[4] - using their mobile while watching TV - a huge audience is capable of engaging directly with broadcast ads, unlocking a powerful new revenue stream

Crucially, brands and retailers will also be able to collect precise data on the ROI of their broadcast campaigns for the first time, enabling them develop their campaigns and ultimately evaluate the results of their investment in a way that was previously impossible.

Dan adds: "Brands are no longer willing to spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns if they are unable to effectively measure the results. By creating interactive smart ads, broadcasters will be able to combine their huge reach with the visibility of digital campaigns, enabling the medium to retain its spot as the leading platform."

PowaTag has partnered with more than 1,200 broadcasters, brands and retailers across the world and has gone live across three continents, enabling advertisers to collect unprecedented real-time data about how, when and where consumers buy their products through each campaign.

About Powa Technologies

Powa Technologies is an international commerce specialist that creates technologies that enable a seamless consumer experience across all purchase channels: online, offline and everywhere. With its next-generation solutions PowaTag, PowaPOS and PowaWeb, Powa removes the final barriers to instant global transactions through a revolutionary instant mobile payment technology, the first fully-integrated mobile POS platform, and advanced cloud-based ecommerce solutions. Significant investment capital has accelerated company growth, attracting the industry's finest subject matter experts to conceive, build and deploy innovative commerce technology at the heart of both merchants' and brands' future omni-channel selling strategies. Powa Technologies is headquartered in London, UK, with offices in New York, Atlanta, San Diego, Miami, Toronto, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Berlin, Amsterdam, Milan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Shanghai.