Yes, the State of Origin is worth the eye-watering TV premiums
PHD Australia's group trading director Sasko Bosilkovski digs into the data to discover if the State of Origin is worth your advertising dollar.
Few other sporting events capture and divide our nation like the State of Origin.
For all the passion and excitement that comes with following the sporting event, we assess the less glamorous factor that plays a pivotal role in shaping the State of Origin – the audience numbers, and ask, are the TV cost premiums worth it?
To answer this, let’s start with the program’s audience appeal. The State of Origin series is one of Australia’s premier sporting events – ask any NRL fan and they’ll refer to it as the sport’s greatest rivalry. When compared to other international sporting competitions, what makes it unique is the way it consistently attracts enormous TV live audience numbers across the nation.
Furthermore, despite the potential for audiences to migrate across to video-on-demand (VOD) platforms – and with Nine recently announcing that its placing further investment on its digital platform offering the main stream and accompanying four different angles – TV is still a principal medium for audiences to connect with the State of Origin series, reaching 91 percent of the population (P14+ who have watched FTA or STV in last seven days).
In fact, the best-of-three State of Origin series all accounted for the top 10 most-watched TV programs in 2017, with a competitive CPM against other sporting codes (see the below table for the top 10 2017 programs). The highly watched spectacle averaged 2.431m people across the 2017 Series and is expected to deliver similar audience numbers in 2018, given that 2016 delivered the same numbers (2.432m). Therefore, viewers will continue to congregate around TVs to watch one of sports’ greatest spectacles.
Given the number of audiences the State of Origin has drawn over the years, there is no doubt that the series will provide main sponsors with a goldmine of marketing opportunities this year.
For brands that aren’t official sponsors, it will be a fantastic opportunity to access the series with spots and dots activity, which can be used as a reach driver platform for campaigns.
Another recommendation that works really well in the US with the Super Bowl is to use purpose-built creative during the State of Origin. Just think of how much talkability the Super Bowl advertisers create around their brand and their ads in the US and all over the world.
Furthermore, there aren’t many general entertainment programs out there today that deliver the same audience numbers as the State of Origin. And you don’t need to be a sponsor to access the series like the AFL or NRL (where you need to be a sponsor to access Finals and the Grand Final to attain the same audience numbers).
To sum it all up, with record crowds, the opportunities for brands to reach broader and engaged audiences during the series are endless.
From a trader’s perspective, it’s a competitive CPM to get into a special event that reaches on average over 2.3m audiences, and the cost premiums are warranted for buying into one of Australia’s premier sporting events when compared with other sporting codes.
Sasko Bosilkovski is the group trading director at PHD Australia.
As long as you dont get placed post match in the last ad-break at 10.38pm after paying full-whack for a spot…….”but it ran within the broadcast”
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Does the CPM still look competitive if you separate the audience for in-play spots and pre-match/halftime/post-match?
Given the vast majority of in-play spots are taken up by sponsors (plus maybe a couple of big fish willing to pay waaaayyy over the odds) your spots and dots client is paying a premium to appear at a time when people are way less engaged or aren’t even watching at all.
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Kicks off in a couple of days, not weeks. Also non sponsors still access AFL and Tennis Final(s)
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Glad you mentioned it because I think it’s poor form to write an article about sport and try present insights when the sport part of the article is all wrong. Sport is a unique business and should be treated accordingly.
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Which is, of course, why the post analysis audience delivery is based on the exact time the ad ran and the media agency can negotiate appropriate compensation. Media 101.
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Well done Sasko
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@Pid – I probably didn’t explain myself properly, of course it’s media 101 but the article is spruiking the SOO as a rolled gold way to reach a large and engaged audience. The reality is that just as often you’ll be chasing makegoods for the next 3 months that will end up running in junk on the digi channels.
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