Traditional Holiday Commercials Are Moving Online - Away from Tv

Shortly before Hallmark would have traditionally launched its seasonal commercial heart-warmers, the greeting-card giant made a surprising confession: This year, for the first time ever, it would spend nothing on holiday TV ads.

Instead, the struggling keepsakery will go all-digital, spending on cheeky YouTube ads and partnering with bloggers to sing the brand's praises. It is also paying the photo-sharing app Snapchat to plaster Hallmark's logo onto family pictures taken beneath America's big downtown Christmas trees.

Hallmark's decision to forgo its decades of feel-good marketing was seen by many as another blow against TV. Where television ads are pricey and imprecise in their reach, a growing number of companies say, digital marketing is a cheap laser beam.

But in the holiday selling season, can the Web truly replace old-fashioned tear-jerker TV?

"When's the last time a banner ad made you cry?" said Brian Wieser, a media analyst for Pivotal Research Group. "If you're a greeting-card company, it sure better."

Google and other kings of digital ad space have argued that one of TV's biggest selling points, its vast and undiscriminating sway, is also its fatal weakness. Spending on search, smartphone, online-video and social-media marketing campaigns has exploded and is expected to overtake TV ad spending next year, data from media researcher Magna Global show.

Companies such as travel-planning site TripAdvisor, which spent $20 million on TV ads in the third quarter of the year, have said they will pause TV ads next year and spend some or all of the ad money elsewhere, hoping to save cash on expensive broadcast ads and follow a shift in customers' attentions.

Between 2008 and 2015, the typical American's share of daily media time spent in front of a TV tumbled from 44 percent to 36 percent, while the share spent with a smartphone grew from 3 percent to 24 percent, Nielsen data show.

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