Your marketing director shows you a chart. Television advertising just consumed 50% of your annual budget. The agency guarantees huge coverage. They discuss prime-time slots and GRPs. They show you slick production stills.
Then you ask the question that changes everything: “How many people actually saw our ad?”
Silence. Then empty rhetoric of “brand awareness” and “market presence.” No conversions. No tracking. No proof. Only a huge bill and an assurance that everybody is watching TV.
In the meantime, your competitor used a tenth of that amount on YouTube and Facebook. They tracked every view. Measured every click. Optimized in real-time. And sealed transactions of which you were not aware.
The Data Crisis Destroying TV ROI in Bangladesh
Bangladesh’s TV advertising market commands approximately 50% of total ad spending, but it has serious systemic risks in measuring audience. This isn’t about preference. This is about broken infrastructure, making your investment unverifiable.
The system of measurement is based on the monitoring devices, yet 300-500 have been deployed in Bangladesh, mostly in Dhaka and Chattogram, instead of the 8,000 that were promised. You are paying high rates on ratings that are made on a few hundred homes in two cities. Industry analysts refer to them as “fake ratings.”
Think about that. Half of the advertising money in the country is flowing into statistically meaningless information. You are throwing your money away, buying reach that you cannot verify, and targeting audiences that you cannot verify.
The Real Cost of Unverified Reach
TVC placements cost between 3,500 and 8,000 Taka per minute, and monthly rates are 105,000 to 240,000 Taka. That is before the cost of production. Before the professional crews, actors and post-production that TV requires.
TVC requires high-quality polished presentation with professional production crews and expensive airtime. You’re locked in. Can’t test cheaply. Can’t iterate quickly. Can’t optimize mid-campaign.
The conventional measure–Gross Rating Points–does not tell you anything about conversions. The direct ROI or consumer action following TV is still a complicated task, and it would need expensive brand recognition research. You spend. Then you pay more to know whether the initial expenditure was effective. Maybe.
Why Digital Video Advertising Actually Shows Returns
Bangladesh began 2024 with 77.36 million internet users (44.5% penetration) and 188.6 million cellular connections (108.5% penetration). [Source: DataReportal]
Your audience is not watching TV any longer. They’re on their phones. All day. Every day.
The Numbers That Matter
Here’s where television falls apart and digital wins:
Table: Cost Efficiency Comparison
| Platform | CPM (Cost per 1,000 views) | Tracking Capability | Budget Flexibility |
| YouTube | $0.70 | Real-time, granular | Fully scalable |
| $0.02 | Complete attribution | Start at any level | |
| TV | Estimated high (opaque) | Limited, unreliable | Fixed, high minimum |
In Bangladesh, YouTube CPM is approximately $0.70, and Facebook CPM is significantly lower at $0.10. On Facebook, you can communicate with 1,000 people at the price of a lunch. On YouTube for a decent meal. On TV? You need a corporate budget just to start.
Production Flexibility Changes Everything
The cost of OVC production is between BDT 2,000-8,000 for simple social clips and BDT 70,000-400,000 and above for high-end branded content. You can test five different messages for what one TV commercial costs to produce.
See what works. Kill what doesn’t. Scale the winners. Test again. This cannot be the case with the rigid and expensive nature of television.
OVC enables the quick deployment of mobile and online-specific content, and messaging and localization can be iterated quickly. Your rival introduces a new feature in the product? Response ads can run in hours, not weeks.
The Measurement Advantage You’re Ignoring
OVC platforms offer granular and real-time data on views, click-through rates, engagement rates, and conversions. Not estimates. Not projections. Real figures of real individuals performing real actions.
Metrics That Connect to Revenue
- Conversion Rate: The percentage who actually buy after seeing your ad
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Exact revenue generated per taka spent
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Precise cost to acquire each customer
- Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): Long-term value of customers acquired
These indicators can be monitored in real-time, and the strategy can be optimized instantly and be as efficient as possible. TV gives you none of this. It takes you weeks to get survey results, which approximate perhaps what occurred among a group of people who may have seen your advertisement.
Who You’re Actually Reaching (And Why It Matters)
By early 2024, there were 52.90 million social media users in Bangladesh, with 33.1 million Facebook users being in the 18-24 age bracket (DataReportal). This isn’t just volume. This is your most valuable demographic.
OTT video subscribers are mostly urban dwellers (92%) who are mostly in the 18 to 40 age bracket. These are digital-first consumers. Economically active. Developing long-term brand loyalty. Purchasing decisions online.
Older, rural populations are reached through television. Although TVC offers good coverage to older audiences, this group has a lower lifetime value and less certain digital conversion channels to e-commerce products. You get numbers. But wrong numbers for new business.
The E-Commerce Explosion Demands Digital Attribution
The e-commerce market in Bangladesh has leapt to $3 billion in 2023 and is predicted to reach $7.02 billion by 2025. Such expansion necessitates advertising, which connects exposure to transactions. TV can’t do this. It is standardized through digital tracking.
Digital advertising was expected to grow to US$1284.3 million in 2023 and is expected to increase at a rate of 8.7% per annum to reach US$1,780.4 million in 2027. The market has already decided. Intelligent funds are directed to quantifiable returns.
The Strategic Allocation That Actually Works
Don’t abandon TV completely. Don’t go all-in on digital without a strategy. Understand what each platform actually delivers.
The 70/30 Framework
- 70% to Digital Video: Your conversion budget. Your testing budget. Your optimization budget. This is the exceptionally low CPMs of Bangladesh before it is upsurged by competition. This is aimed at urban youth demographics of high lifetime value. This provides quantifiable sales.
- 30% to Television: Your brand authority budget. Your mass-awareness budget. Your premium positioning budget. Target high-frequency positioning in prime viewing times (8 PM to 12 AM). Use TV for broad storytelling that primes the market..
Then re-target that TV-sensitive audience with customized digital video advertising that actually works. TV creates awareness. Digital closes deals.
How to Protect Your TV Investment
As TRP measurement is based on a few devices producing questionable ratings, consider TV spend as a high-risk operation cost, rather than a data-driven investment.
Commission independent brand lift studies. Do not use the GRP numbers provided by an agency on compromised measurement systems. Correlate TV spend and overall sales lift using econometric modeling. Accept uncertainty. Budget accordingly.
In the case of digital, maximize mercilessly. The high mobile connectivity requires vertical format optimization, mobile viewing, and low-bandwidth optimization. It does not matter how beautiful your desktop ad is, as long as it buffers on 4G.
The Arbitrage Window Is Closing
The existing CPM rates in Bangladesh–$0.70 on YouTube, $0.02 on Facebook–are a huge arbitrage opportunity. This won’t last. Competition is high as more advertisers realise the effectiveness of digital. Costs rise. The window closes.
According to industry estimates, 78% of all ad spending will be of digital origin by 2029. Your competitors are already moving budgets. It is not a matter of whether to go to digital video. It is either you do it now when the CPMs are insignificant or do it later when you are competing with all other people who have already figured it out.
What This Means for Your Next Campaign
Stop asking “How many people saw our ad?” Start asking, “How many people bought because of our ad?”
Stop getting empty promises on brand awareness. Start demanding specific conversion data.
Stop paying premium prices for unverifiable reach. Start capturing quantifiable audiences at low expense.
Television still has a role. Brand authority matters. Mass awareness matters. The efficiency dividend, the real payoff on your marketing investment, however, is in digital video campaigns. Platforms that show you exactly who watched, who clicked, who converted, and who purchased.
The numbers don’t lie. The measurement systems might, but the numbers don’t. And in the changing media environment of Bangladesh, those figures are all heading in a single direction, namely, to where you can actually compute, check, and maximize your return on investment. Your CFO will appreciate the difference.
