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In the press or at industry gatherings, you read and hear anecdotes about marketers shifting their media budgets to digital and away from TV.

But hard data supporting those stories can be tough to come by in Canada. Which may explain why marketers, media buyers, ad-tech and media company representatives filled a room recently at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club to hear first-hand the results of an ACA-Nielsen study about how marketers are allocating media budgets.

Presented by Imran Hirani, VP Media and Advertiser Analytics at Nielsen, the “Leading Canadian Marketers White Paper” results came from a survey of 66 marketers. It found digital video is seeing big gains while TV, though still dominant, is losing share.

Speaking after Hirani’s presentation, Ron Lund, President and CEO of ACA, cautioned marketers that as they move more money to digital, to have their eyes open to its shortcomings – such as non-human traffic, ad clutter, viewability issues and ad blocking.

“Before you run away from TV, know what you’re getting,” Lund said. “Also, don’t give up the demand for better measurement, both for TV and also with digital.”

On the TV front, Lund urged broadcasters to adopt addressable TV to leverage the capabilities of digital technology and better target consumers with more relevant ads.

Lund also encouraged broadcasters to keep VOD advertising loads low, noting that minute-by-minute audiences remain fairly constant in the less-cluttered VOD environment.

The audience also heard that more than one-third of Canadians are using streaming video on demand (SVOD) services. Lund said the industry needs to find a way to measure SVOD so that marketers can make better informed decisions.

“If you are going to use it, you need to know what you are going to get for your money” he said.

For more coverage on the white paper presentation, visit Media in Canada. ACA members will receive a copy of the “Leading Canadian Marketers White Paper” later this month.