CBS Launches Campaign To Encourage TV, Not Digital, Advertising

CBS, like other major networks, has reason to be concerned about advertisers who are increasingly spending money on digital advertising instead of traditional television. To lessen that trend, the network has launched an initiative called the Campaign Performance Audit (CPA) to support TV advertisers and help them best allocate their funds.

Deadline reports that CBS’s campaign will offer clients a completely customized roadmap for optimizing their TV advertising goals. Through the CPA program, CBS will suggest ad campaigns for clients, test them on live audiences, identify shows during which the campaigns could run, and measure the resulting data through companies like Nielsen (who has recently turned its focus on digital tracking). Ultimately, CBS’s CPA program encourages marketers to stick with traditional TV advertising options rather than digital ones.

“You have [companies] cutting television budgets and prime time with less people seeing their ads, and it’s not producing the same results — they left a lot of money on the table,” CBS Chief Research Officer David Poltrack told Deadline. “We’re going to do everything in our power to show it’s a mistake.”

Poltrack said CBS is spending a “substantial” amount on the CPA initiative, but didn’t reveal exact numbers. The network’s Sales President Jo Ann Ross put more emphasis on the fact that CPA puts CBS “at the forefront of offering clients tangible and proven tools to ensure dollars spent on CBS are the most effective and powerful of their overall ad spend.”

CBS’s decision to invest the seemingly precarious traditional TV advertising market is an interesting move. The network obviously wants to attract more advertising dollars than its competitors, but the CPA initiative is risky. Forrester Research estimates digital advertising spending will top $103 billion and beat out traditional TV by 2019. Additionally, CBS’s ad campaign program seems contradictory to its recent investments in its digital streaming video service All-Access, as well as its upcoming plans for a Showtime-based service.

However, if CBS’ CPA program works out, the network stands to earn a lot of what’s left of TV advertising dollars. Ultimately, the Eye network may not even be that negatively affected from the growing trend of digital advertising.