"Young people 'no longer believe TV ads"
Young people do not believe television advertisements any more and are more likely to find an internet chat room credible, according to the woman who controls the largest marketing budget in the country.
A generation gap has opened up between parents, who still regard TV as the most important medium, and people under 25, said Roisin Donnelly, who as marketing director of Procter & Gamble spends more than £100m each year marketing products such as Pringles, Pantene and Crest.
"When TV was first introduced it was worshipped. It came into the home and it was the new medium. People would go to [other people's] houses to watch it," Ms Donnelly said.
"Today's generation has always had TV and is much more media savvy. Research shows that younger people are more likely to believe a stranger in an internet chat room than a TV advertisement," she said.
TV advertising was still important to P&G, but it was increasingly focused on magazines, radio, the internet and "word of mouth" advertising, where consumers tell people directly they use a product.
The company's observations are based on extensive research and will sound alarm bells for TV stations whose future fortunes are dependent on TV advertising.
And it means that the likes of Procter & Gamble will probably spend more and more on winning celebrity endorsements.
Word of mouth is so important to the company that it regards it as a separate advertising medium.
The rise of weekly gossip magazines has been very important to P&G because it has allowed it to use celebrities to talk about the products they use, whether make-up, hair-care or household products.
The company regularly distributes a host of cosmetics products to celebrities in the hope they will mention that they use them in interviews in magazines such as Heat.
Four years ago when P&G launched Charmin, a new toilet paper, it distributed free samples to opinion leaders and what the company calls "chat" leaders - ordinary people who influence their social or work group.
The company locates these "chat" leaders through an extensive network of market researchers and consumers. For example, over the last two years it contacted more than 200,000 women to get feedback on its latest Pampers nappy products.
Like many marketers, P&G is moving into interactive advertising on digital television, which Ms Donnelly said "added to [the] credibility" of the advertising message because the interactive element gave the consumer the choice of what information to seek out.
Ms Donnelly said TV could still be an effective medium but that young people watched less TV and were less involved in the TV they watched.
Mobile phones are more important to young Britons than TV, according to a study by Starcom MediaVest, the media buying group.
The study said that young people enjoy the connection that internet and mobile phones give them and increasingly expect the same from traditional media such as TV.
Another advertiser, Diageo, which owns Guinness and Smirnoff, is still investing heavily in massive TV campaigns but is not relying on it. A spokeswoman said: "We are looking more and more to other areas such as sponsorship."
TV remains key for the drinks company, but 250,000 people have opted into a marketing campaign in which they are sent information about Guinness and other drinks such as Bell's whisky, Gordon's gin, Bailey's, Tanqueray, Johnnie Walker, Talisker and J&B.
Last year the Smirnoff Experience, a music sponsorship campaign, funded The Joy of Decks, an ITV documentary about DJs.
A generation gap has opened up between parents, who still regard TV as the most important medium, and people under 25, said Roisin Donnelly, who as marketing director of Procter & Gamble spends more than £100m each year marketing products such as Pringles, Pantene and Crest.
"When TV was first introduced it was worshipped. It came into the home and it was the new medium. People would go to [other people's] houses to watch it," Ms Donnelly said.
"Today's generation has always had TV and is much more media savvy. Research shows that younger people are more likely to believe a stranger in an internet chat room than a TV advertisement," she said.
TV advertising was still important to P&G, but it was increasingly focused on magazines, radio, the internet and "word of mouth" advertising, where consumers tell people directly they use a product.
The company's observations are based on extensive research and will sound alarm bells for TV stations whose future fortunes are dependent on TV advertising.
And it means that the likes of Procter & Gamble will probably spend more and more on winning celebrity endorsements.
Word of mouth is so important to the company that it regards it as a separate advertising medium.
The rise of weekly gossip magazines has been very important to P&G because it has allowed it to use celebrities to talk about the products they use, whether make-up, hair-care or household products.
The company regularly distributes a host of cosmetics products to celebrities in the hope they will mention that they use them in interviews in magazines such as Heat.
Four years ago when P&G launched Charmin, a new toilet paper, it distributed free samples to opinion leaders and what the company calls "chat" leaders - ordinary people who influence their social or work group.
The company locates these "chat" leaders through an extensive network of market researchers and consumers. For example, over the last two years it contacted more than 200,000 women to get feedback on its latest Pampers nappy products.
Like many marketers, P&G is moving into interactive advertising on digital television, which Ms Donnelly said "added to [the] credibility" of the advertising message because the interactive element gave the consumer the choice of what information to seek out.
Ms Donnelly said TV could still be an effective medium but that young people watched less TV and were less involved in the TV they watched.
Mobile phones are more important to young Britons than TV, according to a study by Starcom MediaVest, the media buying group.
The study said that young people enjoy the connection that internet and mobile phones give them and increasingly expect the same from traditional media such as TV.
Another advertiser, Diageo, which owns Guinness and Smirnoff, is still investing heavily in massive TV campaigns but is not relying on it. A spokeswoman said: "We are looking more and more to other areas such as sponsorship."
TV remains key for the drinks company, but 250,000 people have opted into a marketing campaign in which they are sent information about Guinness and other drinks such as Bell's whisky, Gordon's gin, Bailey's, Tanqueray, Johnnie Walker, Talisker and J&B.
Last year the Smirnoff Experience, a music sponsorship campaign, funded The Joy of Decks, an ITV documentary about DJs.
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