Paper vs Digital Study

from Mediapost this week:

Print Pervasive and Persuasive, But Digital Overtaking

According to new research from Nielsen, reported by Todd Hale, SVP Consumer & Shopper Insights, 60% of shoppers from the survey say they look at printed paper material either mailed to the home or in newspapers at least once per week. With 82% of Americans online, 93% owning mobile phones and 155 million using Facebook, access to digital technologies is pervasive, yet retailers still spend an estimated 60-70% of their marketing budget on printed ad circulars.

The only electronic tactic that matches printed paper's weekly reach is email. But while far fewer people are looking at sales and product information from digital methods like social media sites, store sites using a tablet PC, or from smart or mobile phones, the weekly usage conversion rates are strong.

Weekly Usage of Retail Advertising Material
Sales Product Information	Weekly Usage
Materials mailed to home	67%
Emails from retailers	67
Newspaper	69
Social Media	45
Smart or mobile phone	39
Printed material in store	38
Store site on computer	37
Store site using PC	35
In store kiosk	24
In store TV	21
Source: Nielsen, July 2011

When shoppers are asked what they want for the future, demand goes up for high tech information sources. While nearly 90% of consumers still want print, more than 70% want email and traditional websites and about one-third are interested in social and smartphone applications. These numbers are even higher among younger generations of shoppers who say they still want paper, but they are more accepting of all information sources.

Future Desires For Information Sources
Source	% of Respondents
Paper
Direct mail	87%
Newspaper	86
In store	86
Digital
Store website using computer	75%
Emails from retailers	72
Store website using tablet	59
In store kiosk	43
TV in store	42
Social media site	37
Smart or mobile phone	31
Source: Nielsen, July 2011

The research showed that while printed material gets shoppers in the store, digital tactics reinforce and reward loyal shoppers. Printed campaigns help shoppers find deals about their favorite products and locate widespread sales and high-tech touch points such as tablets, social sites and in-store kiosks are used to more so for research purposes.

Printed circular response promotion lifts are less effective than five years ago, delivering about a 20% return on investment in 2010, compared to a 28% boost in 2005. The report suggests that an improved mixture of items with an overall higher lift profile and/or timing improvements can counterbalance smaller average lifts.

Printed Circular Ad Principles

Do

Advertise for broad appeal

Deep discounts, but not excessive

Compare lift by category

Price multiples

Manage national brand ad composition

Don't

Worry about page count

Advertise multiple competing items

Use price multiples on new items

Deal low penetrtion

Source: Nielsen, July 2011

In study after study, Nielsen finds that the online circular is the most widely used part of a grocery/drug retailer's web site, but the lift gained is a bit less than the lift seen for the site overall. The research also shows that:

• Online display ads drive offline sales
• ROI is generally higher than traditional media
• Every online campaign does not work
• Success is driven by new shoppers, not greater spending among existing shoppers
• The best responding offline segments are not always the most responsive to online ads

For many brick and mortar retailers, figuring out how to effectively draw people to online offerings and then determining what contribution online efforts are having to offline sales is a challenge. Few of these retailers get more than 20% of store shoppers to visit their site, despite the fact that the majority of shoppers spend 25+ hours per week online.

The presentation concludes with these recommendations:

• Put a process in place for both print and media campaigns that tracks ongoing optimization. A department-by-department win/loss weekly scorecard that includes display compliance should be deployed to get below the surface of the ad.
• An understanding of past shopping behavior makes a big difference in the ROI of online campaigns on driving offline sales. Customer-based reach tactics can be effective, but requires a level of analysis beyond what is known about existing brick and mortar segments. Creative messaging with price and promotion on specific items is particularly effective.
• Digital is necessary to bring about the type of consumer relevancy that future shoppers will expect. It will evolve along with development on the web and in social media, and will be driven to a large degree by younger and more diverse population segments.

For additional information from Nielsen, please visit here.

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Someone Else's View on the Print Business

I know that the Yellow Pages people wouldn't hire me if I need a job. I've featured too many articles advising against spending your money in the phone book.

Bob Killian sends a weekly email and here's his thoughts:

Killian & Company • A one-minute

BrandAid

Print media really needs a re-think. Print directories, for example, are an antique. Newspapers are less effective. The "traditional" direct mail package (in an envelope) hits the trash can unopened.

You need to be more careful than ever to monitor waste circulation and cost-effectiveness. Watch your ROI (duh!) and don't be afraid to zero-out ineffective media.

Let's hope that as a bare minimum you're not wasting money on Yellow Pages, the budget-sucking, dead-but-walking zombie medium.

Amusing side note: last week in the mail we got a Request For Proposal from the Yellow Pages Association, who are looking for an agency to uplift their sagging reputation. (We politely declined.)

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The Future of Phone Books and Newspapers

First, what do they have in common?

Both are published on a regular basis.

Both have deadlines.

Both are having financial problems.

Take a look why:

Print Media Face Staggering Challenges for the Foreseeable Future

"Extinction Threatens Yellow Pages Publishers," screamed a Wall Street Journal article on November 17. "The economic downturn is sending the already ailing industry into a tailspin," wrote reporter Emily Steel. Extinction is a powerful word and one rarely -- if ever -- heard in media circles. The gospel of media has always been that no new medium has ever replaced an existing one. Radio adapted to the introduction of television just as print adapted to the development of Radio. Broadcast networks adjusted when cable came along. The Internet, media traditionalists have continued to assert, might cause upheaval and change for established media, but it certainly could not result in the extinction of those media.

But Yellow Pages will dip in 2009 below their 1998 revenues of $12.1 billion. Myers Report projects Yellow Pages advertising will decline 12 percent in 2009 and 6 to 10 percent in 2010, following a four percent dip in 2008. (Myers will issue its adjusted 2009 advertising investment forecast next week.) While Yellow Pages continues to be a multi-billion dollar business -- far from extinction -- the industry's economic growth prospects are non-existent.

All print media are struggling with the same reality. While some magazine publishers are moving quickly to identify and invest in alternative revenue models, the magazine industry for the most part remains dangerously dependent on traditional print advertising revenues that are eroding at a rate even more dramatic than Yellow Pages' ad revenues. And newspaper ad revenues in some markets are all but disappearing as the auto, real estate, retail, entertainment and other core categories stagger toward a depression-like economic reality.

Consumer magazine ad revenues will decline 12 to 15 percent in 2008 and even more in 2009. Projections on when the industry is likely to see an actual increase in ad revenues can only be based on wishful thinking. As much evidence as exists about the value of magazine advertising and the engagement of magazine readers with advertising messages -- and there is substantial evidence that magazines outperform almost all other media on several engagement measures -- the realities are that print-based media are on the decline.

Newspapers, which do not reap the benefits of high engagement scores (except among Hispanic and African-American readers), are at an even greater disadvantage. In 2001, according to Myers Report, newspaper advertising revenues were $49.2 billion. In 2010, they are projected to be only $28.5 billion, a 42% decline. Consumer magazines are projected to decline in ad revenues from more than $14 billion in 2005 to $10.3 billion in 2010.

Magazine publishers with strong print brands can offset some of these losses by leveraging their brands beyond the print page. But the economic reality is that digital, mobile and other "new" media options simply do not have the short or long term revenue growth potential that traditional media companies require to replace the looming declines.

There are solutions, but cost-cutting measures are only a band-aid on a deepening wound. Being the harbinger of negative economic realities is not a pleasant role and I wish I could be more positive. But publishers need to be far more aggressive in confronting the truth of their situation. There will, of course, be magazines that survive and do quite well in a depressed economic environment and some will successfully sustain their business with their traditional business models.

But for the print media industry as a whole, there is a pressing need to adjust to a new reality. There are solutions. There are opportunities. But if management fails to quickly and dramatically heed the clear warning signs of both economic and systemic, secular dangers to their core business, the reality of extinction will face them sooner than they imagine.

(Source: JackMyers Media Business Report, 12/8/08)

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Media, Money and Advertising

I really wish that that more people would subscribe to their hometown newspaper.

I also really wish that more people would use the phone book.

I wish that the Top 40 radio stations that I grew up with and once worked at were still around.

But like the former high school jock that reminiscences about the good old days of 20 or 30 years ago, you can't be stuck in the past and simply wish things were different.

Instead you need to understand why things are different and to take advantage of the changes.

And Money is the key.

Money is what determines if any business stays in business, including all of the advertising and media options I mentioned.

Why are some struggling? The quick and easy answer may be the Internet. But let's dig deeper and take a look at the root cause.

That root cause again is money.

What made the internet popular is the cost to the end user, (consumer) is either low or perceived as low. The cost of a computer has dropped while the computer hardware and software have become better and more reliable.

And the content that is available at no charge to the consumer via the internet has replaced the content that we used to pay for with a newspaper subscription.

Due to the structure of traditional news media and these changes, they are hurting. It reminds me of the energy crisis, a combination of solutions need to be implemented and the sooner the better.

The solutions are simple: Restructure the business so that the books balance and provide local content to justify your existence to your readers/audience so they will come to you and you can sell advertising.

Implementing these solutions requires new thinking and can be very hard.

Here's the latest bad news for the paper business from Mediapost:

Summer Blues: Newspapers Plunge As Online Stalls

by Erik Sass, Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008 8:32 AM ET

The print story in July should be familiar by now, with double-digit losses across the board at New York Times Company, McClatchy, Gannett and Media General. But the new bad news in these companies' results for the first month of the third quarter is the drastic slowdown in online revenue growth, which has basically flat-lined at three of the four (McClatchy is the exception). At NYTCO, total ad revenues tumbled 16.2% to $129.4 million in comparison to July 2007, while the year-to-date figure is down 10.8% to $1.04 billion. As in previous months, the New England Media Group contributed significantly to the decline, with regional revenues down 24.5%. This makes July the tenth straight month that NYTCO has seen total ad revenues decline, since the trend turned negative in October of last year. This bad news only got worse with anemic online revenue growth--just 0.9% in July. Like other newspaper publishers over the last few years, NYTCO relied heavily on upsells from print classifieds to power online revenue growth in the 20% to 30% range. But as print classifieds dwindle (down 30.1% in July), there are fewer opportunities for upsells to online listings. Online display advertising, while continuing to show strong growth, remains a small part of newspaper revenues. Indeed, the same basic dynamic could be seen at other big newspaper publishers. Gannett's total publishing ad revenues were down 16.7%, due in large part to a 25.4% drop in classifieds. The company does not release separate online revenue figures in its monthly reports, but it seems likely that the results were in line with the second quarter, when online publishing revenues grew just 3% and total operating revenues 10%. Media General's interactive division saw revenues grow just 5.7% in July as total revenues fell 13.8%. Again, the drop is due mostly to losses in print and online classifieds. McClatchy posted relatively good results for online, which grew 12.8% in July, thanks to display advertising. Chief Financial Officer Pat Talamantes noted that online advertising is "up in all categories except employment advertising. In fact, when employment advertising, which has declined nationally both in print and online, is excluded our online advertising was up 58.5% in July."

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Say Goodbye to the Yellow Pages

I speculated on this months ago.

Phone Books are becoming irrelevant.

And now the research supports my prediction.
This is from RBR.com:

Borrell Associates has released new research on yellow pages advertising collapsing, and a huge drive by local ad sales departments to capture online dollars that are migrating there due to a big shift in small-business spending.

They’re forecasting a 39% decline in yellow pages advertising over the next five years. Basically, the industry is about to collapse. The report is entitled, “Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages.”

Excerpts: The headline of this report is not so much a prediction of sudden demise as it is a play on a 1998 report by Forrester Research, “Say Goodbye to Classifieds.” When that report was published decade ago, the newspaper industry scoffed as its print classifieds continued to overshadow upstart Internet sites.

Yet the bottom has fallen out of newspaper classifieds, and in generally the same timeframe that they are predicting for print yellow page directories. Since 2001, half of the annual print classifieds spending by car dealers and job recruiters – billions of dollars in annual sales – has dried up.

Last year the newspaper industry saw its steepest ever decline in print classifieds, driven largely by a 23% fall in real estate classifieds. The conditions for yellow pages publishers are eerily similar.

Print directory revenues have shown stability throughout most of this decade despite the rise of the search engines – the same pre-condition that newspapers saw in the late 1990s with the rise of online classifieds verticals. The economic trigger – a recession – is now forcing small-business advertisers to be more careful with their ad budgets.

Over the next five years, Borrell is predicting 39% of the ad spending on print yellow pages revenues will vanish as small businesses shift marketing budgets online. After 12 years as an advertising medium, the Internet has finally reached small-business owners with viable marketing opportunities in the form of keyword advertising, interactive directories and low-priced online video commercials.

Until now, the key beneficiaries of this shift have been the search engines. But legacy media companies – yellow pages publishers included – have unleashed a newly trained army of local sales people to hunt down this migrating money.

Directory publishers have crosstrained nearly all their print reps to sell interactive media, while newspaper publishers have launched their own interactive directories and have deployed cross-trained sales troops to sell them. All told, online products are being peddled by 34,100 trained local sales reps – more sales people than any other local medium.

With all those reps hawking banners, paid search, interactive directory listings and online video, it is no wonder that local online advertising is increasing at a rate of 61% this year, to $14.1 billion. Yellow pages publishers have spent the past three years transforming their massive on-the-ground sales forces into marketing consultants who can meet their customers’ demands both in print and online.

Their combined print/online packages are simple, low-priced, one-stop solutions to small-business advertising needs. The proof of the industry’s rapid transformation is in the numbers: Of all local media companies, yellow pages publishers have been the most successful in moving toward digital sales, averaging about 14% of their gross revenues from online sales this year.

By contrast, the online contribution for most local newspaper, radio, cable and TV competitors is less than 5% of gross revenues. The main battle for the small business ad spending is between the two or three years is between pure-plays, on the one hand, and the two groups with the largest local sales forces: newspapers and directory publishers.

Both have feverishly cross-trained their sales forces in the past three years and added “online only” reps to pursue the hottest-selling advertising product in local markets: interactive advertising, including the fastest-growing format of all, online video commercials.

Yellow pages publishers face the least-certain future of all local media. The business of delivering targeted, affordable advertising to small businesses – the yellow pages forte’ – is being battered by more targeted and even more affordable search advertising.

Again, Borrell is forecasting a 38.9% decline in print spending over the next five years – the largest decline of 11 local media categories they track. They expect print directory spending to slide from $12.7 billion this year to $7.8 billion in 2013 as smaller businesses cut back their yellow pages spending in favor of online search, interactive yellow pages, and the hottest category of all – online video commercials.

Publishers have already started making cuts. Idearc recently eliminated 28 of its 1,200 directories, and Yellow Book USA laid off 550 sales reps. Layoffs and folded directory titles are expected to continue over the next two years. The key drivers of these changes are broadband penetration and the growing sophistication of search engines and interactive directories.

Between 2005 and 2007, 10.4 million adults stopped using the yellow pages “during the past month.” If the trend continues, by 2010 average monthly use of the print directories will have slipped below critical mass: the majority of all adults will not crack open a yellow pages book in any given month.

Improving Internet connectivity makes that more likely: broadband users are four times more likely to use an interactive directory than dial-up users. © 2008 Radio Business Report, Inc. All rights reserved


Also look at your Advertising Options.

Here are more links to Phone Book News:

• Grandpa, what's a phone book?
• The Phone Book Battle
• Yellow Pages Re-invented?
• Even More Phone Book Links
  

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Trends in Advertising

From my email today:

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Internet Ad Growth Percentage High, But Traditional Ad Dollars Higher

The IDC Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast shows total worldwide Internet advertising to be $65.2 billion in 2008, growing to $106.6 billion in 2011.

John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC, explained "... (though) Internet advertising is growing at a phenomenal rate, ... (it) is still relatively new and growing from a much smaller base... By the end of the forecast period, spending for Internet advertising will trail direct mail... by more than $30 billion, while spending on TV and print ads will each be nearly twice as great as for online ads... The long-term opportunity for Internet advertising can be seen in the disparity in per capita spending: total advertising revenues... (are) more than $105 per inhabitant of the planet, while Internet advertising revenues are less than $50 per active Internet user."

In projecting advertising types, the report says:

• Keyword ads will remain the dominant type of Internet advertising throughout the forecast period, capturing more than a third of annual online ad spending worldwide
• Display ads will be the next largest type of Internet advertising, capturing more than 20% of worldwide spending annually through 2011
• Classified is next, with nearly 19% of all online ad spending per year
• Spending in both categories will be pressured by rich media ads, which are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 50% during the 2007-2011 forecast period

"Marketers already recognize that online advertising must be incorporated into any comprehensive ad strategy. This will continue to drive growth in online ad spending well beyond the forecast period," said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Media and Entertainment. "However, there is still a lot of experimentation underway within the category as marketers seek the optimal mix of ad types to reach their target audience. This will fuel spending for all types of online ads."

Additional expenditure highlights from the study include the following:

• The United States will lead the world in both total advertising spending and online ad spending throughout the forecast period with expenditures of more than $265 billion and $45 billion respectively in 2011
• More than $5 billion will be spent worldwide in 2008 in each of the top four categories of online ads - adult content and gambling, information, electronics, and computing. These will continue to be the leading categories in 2011

For additional information from IDC, please visit here.

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Newspaper Stops Printing

Unfortunately, this headline may be more common. This story is from Mediaweek:

Wisc. Daily Goes Online, Drops Daily Editions

Publisher declines to reveal how much the Web-based move would save

July 10, 2008

-By Joe Strupp, E&P

Less than three months after The Capital Times in Madison, Wis., dropped its daily print format for a Web-based report, another Wisconsin daily is following the trend.

The 5,500-daily circulation Daily Telegram in Superior announced Thursday it would move to a Web-based reporting approach, while offering a print product just two day per week.

"We see a lot of our readers migrating to the Web, we see that growing every month," said Ken Browall, publisher. "Economics is another piece of it. We have seen declining revenue, we are not immune to it."

Browall declined to reveal how much the Web-based move would save.

The Daily Telegram, owned by Forum Communications of Fargo, N.D., had not decided when the move would occur, but Browall said it would likely be early September. He also said the two days of the week for print publication had not been chosen, or the size of the print product.

"We will talk to readers and advertisers about what are the best two days," he said. "We will look at what will work most, and when, when meetings are held and other news events."

Editor Ron Brochu could not be reached for comment.

The afternoon paper currently publishes every day but Sunday, when the sister Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune is distributed to its readers. The paper has about 39 employees, with nine on the news staff.

Browall said no cutbacks in staff are expected. He said the paper's Web site, www.superiortelegram.com, is currently a 24-hour site, but will likely expand more with the change.

"We have reporters now who do things on the weekend and after hours," he explained. "We've got a small staff, so we cover everything we can as it happens."

In a story on its Web site announcing the change, the paper stated: "Following a growing trend in the newspaper industry, The Daily Telegram will refocus its emphasis toward Internet publishing, company executives said today.

"The twice-weekly Telegram will remain a paid circulation newspaper. Internet publishing has grown in popularity as traditional print advertisers have gradually moved to the newer medium. Meanwhile, print advertising revenue has declined nationwide, and newsprint costs have grown. This year, the revenue stream has been particularly weak as the struggling economy, poor credit conditions and slow hiring has hurt traditionally strong classified advertising customers in the automobile, real estate and help wanted sectors."

The Capital Times drew national interest in April when it dropped daily print publication for a Web focus, offering two weekly print products in its place. Browall said the Madison move slightly influenced his staff's decision.

"We looked at a lot of alternatives," he said. "Going tabloid, free distribution, and this was the best option."

Ironically, the Daily Telegram Web site was hit with a major slowdown today, which Browall attributed to a server problem across many Forum outlets. "It hasn't happened very often, so I am surprised," he said of the Web problems. "I am sure it is not because of the story we put up about ourselves."

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Ads that reach young Adults

When we had an alternative rock station under our roof, we were very much aware that it was getting harder and harder to get a measureable 18-24 male audience. I say measureable, because we had great stories from advertisers, but when ad agencies looked at the ratings, the station did poorly.

Fort Wayne has lot's of colleges but is not considered a college town in the manner that the following story talks about college towns:

Study: College Newspapers Are the Ad Rage on Campus

Local papers may be yesterday's news for some advertisers, however college newspapers are thriving, per a new study.

Alloy Media+Marketing, New York, found that 82% of students read their campus newspaper, a rate that more than doubles most major metro dailies. Of this group, most are also open to advertising.

Only 13% said they avoid advertising in their campus newspaper. Close to 80% reported reacting to an ad or article.

College papers are an arena that is ripe for wider use by marketers, said Samantha Skey, evp-strategic marketing at Alloy. "Those marketers who are siphoning off good bits of their ad budget to get that 18-34 demographic and are not using college newspapers are missing out," she said.

Alloy surveyed 1,200 students online in April. Coupons were found to be particularly effective in gaining brand affinity, with 78% of respondents claiming to have responded to coupons or promotional codes.

The most popular categories for coupon usage were food and clothing, with big box retailers a close third. Female students were more likely than males to use coupons.

Movie houses and automakers understand that there is a willing audience that reads their college newspapers. Fast food and consumer electronics marketers tend to advertise less in this medium, per the findings.

Ford is one brand that has maintained a presence in college newspapers for the last 20 years. Recently, it dangled a $500 coupon good for a discount on a new Ford automobile.

"College newspapers are extremely targeted and research keeps showing us that it is one of the best ways to get students' [attention] on campus," said Crystal Greene, manager of college student purchase programs at Ford, Dearborn, Mich. "The one thing you can count on is that students will pick up the college paper at some point."

Early last year, Ford-sponsored pre-screenings of 21 and The Forbidden Kingdom were advertised prominently in student papers. At the events, local representatives talked to students about the latest and greatest models.

"When you look at print media in general, of course, lots of companies are funneling money out of there and into digital," Greene said. "But on a college campus, it's a much better buy for an advertiser. Students are still engaged in the newspapers."

More than half (55%) of students reported reading the student paper in the last week, and close to 30% reported reading every issue. Among the wired generation, college newspapers "are a very tried and true media platform despite that fact that they are not sight, sound and motion, or any other digital application," Skey said.

smiller@brandweek.com

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The New Newspaper

In many cities, there is at least one free paper. We have at least two, one is a weekly, the other is a bi-weekly.

When I was in Chicago and Indianapolis last month, I noticed several available for the taking. These papers rely on advertising as the source of revenue, much like the traditional radio business that I work in.

This business model may be the only salvation for traditional newspapers. Take a look at this story:

By Kate Holton

Newspapers seeking to compete with the Internet are likely to become free and place greater emphasis on comment and opinion in the future, a survey of the world's editors showed on Tuesday.

The report, conducted by Zogby International for the World Editors Forum and Reuters, revealed that newspaper editors were still optimistic about the future of their publications but believed they would have to adapt further for the digital age.

Some 86 percent of respondents believed newsrooms should become more integrated with digital services as two in three believe the most common form of news consumption will be via electronic media such as online or mobiles within a decade.

"For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall," said pollster John Zogby.

"The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how. Editors now know the solution: Innovate. Integrate. Or perish."

According to the survey, 56 percent of respondents believed that the majority of news, be it via print or online, would be free in the future.

That was up from 48 percent who answered yes a year ago.

Those leaning towards the free model mostly came from 'emerging' newspaper markets in areas such as South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia where 61 percent of respondents believed news would be free.

Respondents in Western Europe were less likely to believe in news becoming free, with 48 percent of news executives thinking it likely, while North American editors were on par with the average.

The newspaper industry has been hit in recent years by the push to move content online and executives still saw many problems ahead.

According to 704 senior news executives surveyed, the greatest threat to the industry was the declining number of young people who read newspapers while the increasing emphasis on speed meant only 45 percent of editors thought the quality of journalism would improve over the next 10 years.

More than a quarter thought it would become worse.

To meet the many challenges, more than 30 percent of respondents wanted to be able to recruit more journalists while 35 percent would like to train the journalists they have in new media.

Nearly two-thirds also believe that some traditional editorial functions will be outsourced in the future.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Jason Neely) Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.

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Shifting Advertising Dollars

Here's a report card comparing last year with 2006:

2007 Ad Spend By Media

Media Category	2006 vs. '07 Change
Internet	18.9 %
National Magazines	7.6 %
Outdoor	7.2 %
Nat'l Sunday Supplements	4.9 %
National Cable TV	2.2 %
Spanish- Language TV	1.5 %
Network TV	-1.5 %
Local Magazines	-1.7 %
Spot Radio	-2.0 %
Spot TV Markets 101-210	-2.6 %
Network Radio	-3.9 %
B-to-B Magazines	-4.0 %
Local Sunday Supplements	-4.9 %
Spot TV Markets 1-100	-5.1 %
Local Newspaper	-7.5 %
Nat'l Newspaper	-7.7 %
Total Ad Spend	0.6 %

Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Syndicated TV and FSI Coupons were excluded due to methodology changes. Newspaper reflects display ads only.

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Why Traditional Media is Dying

Seconds ago, while looking for a picture to add to my last post, I came across an excellent explanation to Why Traditional Media is Dying. It's more than a lack of readers, or lack of instant updates, just read about it here.

Here's a sample: "...The reason traditional media is being wiped out is that it costs so damned much to produce. You simply can't compete with a free blog. Supply and demand. There are millions of alternative sources of information that cost zip. And all of them can compete directly with dead tree media for eyeballs. Market forces are unstoppable no matter how much you dislike the new reality...."

The challenge is going to be for the advertiser to find a way to reach their potential customers in the future.

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Just a thought

First the news reported by Mediapost:

Greener: 'Outside' Chucks Inserts Cards

Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008 9:00 AM ET

Outside Magazine is chucking those pesky insert subscription cards as part of its effort to go green. It will encourage people to go online and communicate with the magazine. The pub's goal is to "establish a paperless relationship," according to Paul Rolnick, consumer marketing director.

How about really "greening it up" by not using any paper and just do an online magazine? Just a thought........

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More on line growth

This time it's from the magazine business. Here's the scoop:

Magazines See 2007 Boom On Web
by Erik Sass
Print is thriving--online. The top 320 magazine Web sites received on average 67.5 million unique visitors per month during the fourth quarter of 2007, an 8.1% jump from the same period in 2006, according to Web data collected by Nielsen Online and compiled by the Magazine Publishers of America. That's a faster rate of growth than the Internet overall, where the total U.S. online population rose 2.4% year-over-year. - Read the whole story...

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