Extending your TV reach: with a limited broadcast budget, Premier Bank in West Virginia boosts viewership of ads by using 15-second 'bookend' spots.

• Author: Albro, Walt

MOST COMMUNITY BANKS do not advertise much on broadcast television. It's too expensive. Banks that do are constantly experimenting with ways to use the medium more cost-effectively.

Premier Bank in Huntington, W.Va., is an example of a bank that spends about one-third of its advertising budget on broadcast TV. Recently, the bank, which has assets of $900 million, has been testing 15-second "bookend" spots as a way to get "more bang for the buck" with TV advertising.

A bookend TV ad is one that appears at the start of a commercial break, followed by a second that pops up about 90 seconds later, at break's end.

With bookend ads, the bank pays for a 30-second spot but, because it is divided into two 15-second segments, the ad has greater impact on the viewer--making the message easier for the consumer to recall.

"The beauty of it is that you create an impression in the mind that the bank is on TV a lot more than it actually is," says Leland S. Steele, marketing manager.

Bookend ads demonstrate how Premier looks for ways to get the most leverage out of broadcast ads--despite the fact that the bank does not have a large TV budget, says Steele, who has a background with a small advertising agency.

Consolidated under one name

Premier Bank is an affiliate of Premier Financial Bank Corp., which, until four years ago, had two affiliates. The other affiliate was Citizens Deposit Bank in Kentucky. These two banks operated with separate identities in five geographic divisions. In 2011, the holding company decided to give the...