MUMBAI: Some of the biggest tech giants are the biggest spenders on TV.Figures from around the world show the extent to which online businesses are now investing in TV advertising.

For example, in Australia in 2017, Google spent sixtimes as much on TV advertising, reaching A$11.3 million and Apple increased its ad spend by 17.4 per cent to A$20.2 million. Amazon backed its Australian launch with a TV ad investment of A$3.2 million, and Uber increased its TV spend with a first investment of A$3.4 million, according to Nielsen Adex,.

Using comScore data in the US, the Video Advertising Bureau found that online businesses see an immediate and significant lift in web traffic once they launch TV campaigns – data from 14 online businesses showed the lift ranged from 11 per cent to 1,075 per cent. Studies from around the world have proven the impact that TV advertising has on online activity. A study in France by SNPTV found that organic traffic to a pure players’s website increases by 66 per cent during a TV advertising campaign.

The global figures were compiled by The Global TV Group, an informal grouping of TV broadcasters’ and sales houses’ trade bodies in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and Latin America. Findings show that from Brazil to Germany, brands such as Amazon, Zalando, Netflix, Expedia and Airbnb are building their image, reputation and sales through the reach and influence of TV.

The investment trend demonstrates the strong relationship between TV and online, with viewers armed with Internet-connected devices able to respond to TV advertising immediately.

According to Google Australia and New Zealand marketing director Aisling Finch,”Like most marketers, we use a range of channels to achieve campaign objectives. We know that audiences engage with content across different platforms at different times, and marketers do the same. For campaigns such as the launch of Google Home we used a combination of radio, TV, cinema, print, outdoor and online channels including search, YouTube and social. In this campaign we found the combination of contextual media and creative drove stronger uplift.”

In Belgium, during 2016, TV represented a 62 per cent share of the online business sector’s media investments. The Rocket Internet group, the second biggest spender, which owns companies like HelloFresh and Home24, spent a total of €6,072,463 in 2017 on TV advertising.

Online businesses’ TV ad spend grew by 17 per cent in Brazil between 2015 and 2017. When including the e-commerce players owning physical stores, the increase is almost 20 per cent. In Canada, online businesses represent one of the fastest growing sectors in TV advertising. Online businesses have doubled spend on TV over the past five years, with spend in 2017 topping $105 million.

Over a 3-year period (2015 to 2017), Airbnb’s TV ad spend increased by 44 per cent. Expedia and Amazon show even more impressive figures with an increase of 65 per cent each. In Italy, online businesses invested a total of €95,653,000 in TV in 2017, representing a 10.7 per cent increase compared to 2015 whereas in Netherlands, e-commerce advertisers increased their TV investment by 26 per cent between 2015 and 2017 to become the fourth biggest category of TV-advertisers. 200 e-commerce advertisers invested €300 million gross in TV in 2017. The highest TV investor was the German booking site Trivago with a gross investment of €25 million. Spain saw Amazon’s TV ad spend go from €106,990 in 2015 to €11,006,360 in 2017, more than 100 times the investment in 2015. Google’s investment in TV went from €40,250 in 2015 to €603,620 in 2017, 15 times more.

In United Kingdom, online businesses including brands Amazon, Trivago, Google and Purple Bricks invested a total of £682 million in TV advertising in 2017, up from £590 million in 2015. Despite cuts in other categories due to ongoing economic uncertainty, online businesses, which in 2016 became the biggest spenders on TV in the UK, remained steadfast in their TV investment.

United States of America in 2017, saw digital-native companies including brands like Amazon, Expedia, Wayfair and eBay spend over $5.9 billion US dollars on TV, representing a 10 per cent increase over 2016.  Within this spend is a group of 50 “direct-disruptor” newcomer brands, including Gwynnie Bee, Peloton and Leesa – who only recently began investing in TV but now collectively spend over $1.3 billion US dollars in TV annually.

The positive trend is set to continue in 2018 as more e-commerce brands around the globe put their trust in TV advertising to strengthen their image, drive traffic and generate return.

Video Advertising Bureau president and CEO Sean Cunningham said, “We’ve been analysing digital-native companies since 2014 and found that those who turned to a heavy reliance on TV early in their company’s history saw substantial benefits.”

n a more recent study, featuring various case studies, the VAB looked into how TV drives business outcomes for disruptor brands. For example, expanding brands saw an average increase of 188 per cent in their search volume as they increased their TV investment.