How to know your tv ad will work… before you launch it
How Truff launched its first ever TV campaign with Swayable Pre-testing
Takeaways:
- Advertisers are leaning into pre-testing to select which TV concepts to launch
- Digitally native brand Truff pre-tested 2 TV concepts with Swayable and chose the top performing video for their first TV campaign
- Truff also used Swayable pre-testing to identify which audiences would be most receptive to the campaign, then placed ads on corresponding networks
Testing is one of the killer tools of digital marketing. With digital platforms like Facebook or TikTok, modern marketers can upload 10 or even 50 different creatives, sit back, and let the algorithm funnel spend to the top performing version.
The challenge comes when you want to spend on traditional channels like television or out of home. The cost of testing multiple ideas here is significantly higher, often prohibitively so. Tracking each version is tough. How do you quickly decide which TV ad is working? And once you do, how quickly can you scale spend?
TV’s Secret Sauce: Pre-testing
Instead of going in blind, brands are ‘pre-testing’ TV concepts to help pick the best versions *before* they go on the silver screen. Recently, truffle-focused sauce brand Truff tested ad concepts on the Swayable platform to determine which ad to launch in their first national TV campaign.
We spoke with Truff’s SVP of eCommerce Calvin Lammers about Truff’s foray into national TV and pre-testing. The brand has grown tremendously online (the company owns the enviable Instagram handle @sauce), and recently got a nod from Oprah’s favorite things list. With TV, the brand is poised to scale.
How did you know you wanted to enter TV?
I have been in the emerging CPG space for a while and I have seen TV play an important role around this stage. Whether you’re a DTC/digitally native brand or traditional retail brand, there’s a certain point where you need to drive massive reach and exposure, and TV is still the best way to do so.
How did you use pre-testing?
We used pre-testing in two ways, actually.
- 1) Deciding on which creative to run: We used Swayable to decide what version of the creative we should run. I didn’t want to spend 4 weeks and thousands of dollars to find out it wasn’t working.
- 2)TV audience targeting: Audience targeting for TV can be tough to measure. With streaming TV you can get some targeting insights, but linear TV you don’t; it’s a bit of a black box. In Swayable’s test we saw that our ads performed well with certain markets. So, we used the data to target which networks to run the ads on and reach those audiences.
What did you look to test with Swayable?
We measured a combination of direct response and brand linkage (sales and brand perception), but also product-specific attributes to get closer to how someone might use Truff: Does Truff sauce sound appealing? Does it pair well with food? Would you try it?
How are the results so far?
Early leading indicators are very positive! We have seen an immediate increase in Google brand search, and lift in Amazon traffic.
Did anything about the tests surprise you?
It was great to see how much ‘taste’ came through the creative. I didn’t think that would be the case given that there is no actual eating in the ad! But those learnings helped our confidence in going with this concept.
Overall, the level of detail and how far you can dig down into the Swayable results impressed me. I had an idea about the platform, but the overall sentiment analysis, getting a look at 5 different audiences, seeing what worked, what didn’t — there are a lot of great insights applicable for future creative.
Interested in seeing how Pre-testing can generate insights for your next TV campaign? Book your quick demo here. Concepts, ideas, storyboards and final creative can all be tested in Swayable.
