Free-to-air TV advertising still rules – unless you’re aiming for Gen Z or Millennials
Free-to-air advertising is still the most influential advertising medium for older generations, while the medium doesn’t even make the top three for Gen Z or Millennials.
This according to the Deloitte Media and Entertainment Consumer insights 2024 study, a poll of “a nationally representative sample of 2,000 consumers, aged 16–90, weighted for demographics such as age, gender, location and working status”.
While free-to-air TV rules for Gen X, Boomers, and what Deloitte called ‘Matures’, Gen Z favour advertisement from social media platforms, shopping websites, and streaming video.
Millennials also favour social media platforms, followed by shopping websites, but also rely upon search engines for their advertising.
26% of Boomers are most influenced by radio advertising, while 24% of ‘Matures’ are hooked by newspaper advertising, with 20% most influenced by advertising during sporting matches.
Despite this generational skew, free-to-air “continues to hold the most influence on buying decisions”, according to the research, although other formats are quickly catching up.
Consumers are also becoming fed up with advertising on their streaming video services, which may result in fatigue for free-to-air advertising.
Given that the split between streaming and free-to-air is now 50/50 — according to the poll, the average Australian spends 8 hours 20 minutes streaming video, and the same amount of time watching free-to-air — SVOD viewers may soon reject all forms of advertising, which wouldn’t bode well for the free-to-air model.
Further to this, advertising power continues to shift from TVs to smartphones, with the study finding that Australians prefer to engage with ads on their smartphones. “Given many consumers also make purchases on their phones, it paves a shorter pathway from ad to sale,” the study reasoned.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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