TV Advertising Gets Microsoft Backing Amid ‘Web Guerrilla’

WPP Plc and Publicis Groupe SA are racing to expand their Web and mobile-phone advertising businesses to catch consumers’ attention. Microsoft Corp. says they shouldn’t forget a much more traditional route: television.

There has “never been a better time for TV advertising to seize the moment,” Microsoft Advertising and BBDO Worldwide, a unit of the world’s second-biggest ad company Omnicom Group Inc., said in a study released today. The survey among 1,500 consumers in the U.S., China, Russia, the U.K. and Saudi Arabia shows that “TV is a rich, powerful medium and advertisers should continue to be making great ads for it.”