Google and Nielsen have partnered up to do some research into people’s television watching habits. What they found was that there’s a significant portion of the population who doesn’t spend that much time watching TV. About 31% of people age 18 to 49 spend only an average of 39 minutes per day watching TV. This is significantly less time than the general population and that really doesn’t give advertisers too much of an opportunity to market to those folks.

Across a series of six cross-media studies, the duo found that a combination of both television and online advertising efforts are the best way to reach consumers in the light viewer category. Television alone failed to reach 63% of people from this group. Combing the online component allowed them to achieve a 27% increase in brand impression rate. I’ve summarized the results here, but it really much more involved.

Take a look at the video from Google’s AdWords Blog:

Here are the highlights Google listed from the study adding YouTube to your ad campaign:

* Reach a valuable, complementary, younger audience

* Add much-needed frequency to light TV viewers

* Deliver media more evenly across light and heavy TV viewers, reducing waste

* Do all of this both efficiently and affordably

So if you’re thinking about adding an online component to your television marketing campaign, take a look at these studies further. There’s more to it than just adding a YouTube video or paying for some space on Google. The overarching message is that with just television alone, you are missing a valuable portion of the consumer market. Follow the links above to learn more about what Nielsen and Google discovered about online advertising.