Local TV is a ‘Massive Growth Industry’

TV marketers who want to be sure their companies thrive in an increasingly turbulent digital age must gather their teams in a room, serve up some alcohol and brainstorm until they design the next big competitor to their industry.

“When you do that you will find that you have created something that is better than what you have, and if you don’t pursue it, someone else will.” So suggested Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer at Vivaki, in his keynote address to last week’s PromaxBDA Station Summit in Las Vegas. The longtime advertising industry gadfly had words of encouragement — and caution — for the hundreds of local TV marketing and promotion managers in his audience. TV, and more specifically video, “is a massive growth industry,” Tobaccowala said. “Video and TV remain the most powerful ways one can potentially market … and people watch more video than ever before. All of this bodes extremely well for your industry.” In addition, “local matters more and more, so things look really positive as long as we all continue to evolve with the needs of the principals we are serving.” Those principals — the audience and advertisers — are buffeted by technological change that has no respect for industries, companies or past consumer behavior, he warned.