http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/The-Briefing/20080901-Advertising-spending-to-fall-sharply-as-slowdown-hits.html?source=cmailer
Advertising spending is predicted to experience a dramatic slowdown in 2009, due to uncertain economic conditions and lower business and consumer confidence.
The news is a disappointment for media companies in the $12 billion market, which is expected to see growth slow sharply from a steady 13% in 2007 to 6% this year.
Projections for 2009 are worse, with media agency OMD predicting growth will slide to 4.7% in 2009, while Zenith Optimedia estimates a fall to 4.2% and JP Morgan approximates a drop to 2%.
Peter Cox, independent media analyst for Cox & Co, says the state of the advertising market is tied to the economy’s health, and spending will tend to reflect that.
“The fact is that advertising is highly reactive to the state of the economy,” he says. “In a down period, it’s easier to cut back on advertising than it is to cut back on other expenses. You don’t have to fire people; you just take it out of the advertising budget.”
Even the fastest-growing category of recent years, internet advertising, will see its growth rate slow from 34.5% in 2007 to 23.5% in 2008, with a prediction of just 17.4% in 2009, according to OMD.
But Cox says the growth decline shouldn’t necessarily indicate panic across the industry, as these figures are still respectable numbers.
“Some of the areas are being a bit more resilient, such as publishing. But I still reckon I’ve seen more change in the last two years than the last 30. This really has been a very incredibly fast changing marketplace,” Cox says.
“I think it depends on what happens to the Australian economy. We’ve been pretty protected against the rest of the world; I think it depends on how you view the future. But if those things keep on going, our advertising will be hit hard,” Cox says.
But the industry is still being hit hard. A survey published by the Association of National Advertisers in the United States found over half of those surveyed expected to cut budgets, while 61% of those planned to cancel or delay current projects.
Australians embrace mobile phone multi-media
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080822-Australians-embrace-mobile-phone-multi-media-.html?source=cmailer
Australians are quickly becoming comfortable with creating and sharing content through their mobile phones, but are still adjusting to the idea of mobile social networking.
The finding, from a survey of more than 2000 mobile phone users conducted by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association, suggests the increased sophistication of handsets and availability of 3G services are having an impact on the way people use their phones.
Over half of respondents to the survey said they had used content on their mobile phone created by others, with games (43%) true tone ring tones (42%) and wallpapers (33%) being the most commonly downloaded content.
A third said they regularly share the content they create, mainly photos (96%), videos (41%) and music (32%).
The next mobile phone content horizon appears to be information. Demand for maps, lifestyle information such as restaurant or movie reviews, and TV program listings have all increased by around 100% or more over the past year.
But social networking, long thought to be the “killer app” that would take mobile phone rich media mainstream, still hasn’t taken a strong hold on mobile phone users.
According to the survey, 16% of respondents had visited an online network service on their mobile, with MSN Messenger, Facebook and MySpace being the most popular.
Consumer prefer conventional media advertising over online
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080822-How-would-you-like-your-advertising-today.html?source=cmailer
Most people prefer to get their advertising delivered through conventional channels such as the mass electronic media or newspapers, according to a Mediamark Research & Intelligence survey.
Marketing Charts reports that 17% of US consumers who participated in the survey said they like their ads in mass media or on paper, making them the most popular ad delivery formats.
Advertising at events such as sports was the next most palatable option, preferred by 13%, ahead of advertising on outdoor media such as billboards on 12%.
Perhaps the most interesting finding of the survey, however, was the 9% who said they preferred to get their advertising through emerging media such as mobile devices or through computer games. This group, which only a couple of years ago wouldn’t have existed at all, had the youngest media age of all the survey segments, at 35.
But, perhaps not surprisingly, the single biggest category uncovered by the survey were those who preferred to avoid the bitter pill of advertising entirely – 32% described themselves as “ad averse.”
Business spends big on the company website
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080717-Business-spends-big-on-the-company-website.html?source=cmailer
Businesses in the US usually spend a bigger portion of their marketing and advertising budgets on their websites than they do on online advertising, new research has revealed.
According to the analysis by research firm Outsell, US firms devote an average 61.8% of their online advertising and marketing spend to their websites, amounting to $US65.1 billion a year, with the rest going to online advertising.
Combined, US businesses will spend $US105.3 billion on web advertising and marketing in 2008, Outsell claims, putting it ahead of spending on TV, radio and movies – worth $US98.5 billion – for the first time.
Asked which measurement they prefer to use to gauge they impact of all the money they’re spending online, 46% said they preferred cost per sale, ahead of cost per lead (37%) and cost per click (32%).
But that old dinosaur, print, remains top of the heap when it comes to making a claim on advertising and marketing budget – Outsell forecasting it will eat up 35.5% of all spending in the US, or $US147 billion, this year.
Behavioral Targeting
http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?code=emarketer_2000487&src=report5_head_info_newsltr
Extracts: Held back by incomplete technology development, brand marketers’ preference to have ads appear with relevant content and concerns over violating consumer privacy, eMarketer estimates that US spending for behaviorally targeted online advertising will reach only $775 million in 2008.
The Behavioral Targeting report analyzes the trends that are driving, and delaying, development of this promising new online channel.
Things may not be going smoothly, but they are about to change.
eMarketer projects that behaviorally targeted ad spending will reach $4.4 billion by the end of 2012.
Mainstream adoption of online video advertising will be the key factor driving behaviorally targeted ad spending to nearly 25% of all US display ad spending that year.
Maximize Your Search Potential Through Blended Search
http://www.marketingprofs.com/8/maximize-potential-blended-search-brown.asp?sp=1
Blended search, also known as universal search, is starting to change the way searchers see search results—and consequently, the way search marketers and Web site owners approach search marketing.
Much of the search strategy has revolved around textual content and keywords on Web sites and getting links to sites.
Not only has content expanded to include video and audio, but the content format itself has also evolved—personal Web sites, basic brochure-ware company sites, and simple ecommerce have been joined by forums, blogs, review sites, social media, and more.
Over time, the search engines began developing specialty search spiders that focused on various subsets of the online world to handle this additional content and formats.
Searching for and indexing specific content could be fine-tuned to account for the challenges and nuances of the medium, as well as allow searchers to locate this content easier. Searches for news, blogs, products, images, videos, or other content could be handled differently, and hopefully better than, through regular searches.
Though the search engines built special vertical searches, not many searchers came, at least not in the overall scheme of things. Regardless of what people were searching for, the majority of searchers continued to perform searches through the "standard" web search interfaces.
In fact, most searchers, even today, are probably fairly oblivious to the various specialty, or vertical, search indexes. In part, this helps explain some of the rationale that lead to blended search.So what is blended search? Blended search involves blending different content from the engine's various vertical indexes into the traditional, standard search results. Search results may include special news results, images, videos, maps, blog posts, product listings, patent information, or financial details alongside the usual search results.
Some of this content may have shown up before; but unlike the traditional listings, results from a vertical index used in blended search may be called out and labeled based on the type of content it is.All of the major search engines have now integrated blended search into their standard search results. How noticeable this is varies from engine to engine and often by specific search query. The impact may still be very subtle as the engines slowly and carefully roll out this change.
This isn't too surprising, considering that this is one of the biggest changes affecting the type of search results that people have grown accustomed to. Obviously the engines don't want to overwhelm searchers with too much change.
What blended search clearly means, however, is that search marketing strategy is taking on an even greater focus than ever before... and there's a need to diversify, diversify, diversify your content.
Most search result pages deliver 10 organic (or natural) results along with some paid-search results. Search engines are implementing blended search in different ways. In some cases, these blended results are being added in addition to the traditional search results, but in other cases some of the blended results actually replace the traditional results.
That last method is especially important, as it means that although only 10 results are still being delivered, their makeup has changed.What does this mean for you and your site, now and in the near future? If you aren't diversifying your content and targeting these other vertical search areas, you are missing out on additional opportunities to rank, and may even be losing positioning—which could happen if the addition of blended results bumps your listing off page one.
And don't think that you only have to worry about being bumped if you are in the number-10 position. The search engines may simply bump all listings down, or the spot where the blended search result is inserted may be the one that gets bumped off page one.
Diversifying your content strategy is not only a defensive move but also an offensive one: The more content you have that may fit into the different search verticals, the more you increase your chances for ranking.How to specifically target blended search as an opportunity varies for everyone, every site, and every industry.
The first step, though, is to get a feel for how blended search is affecting searches within your industry today:
- Perform searches in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask that relate to your industry, or searches that you would like to be found for, and look over the results.
- Also perform searches for popular, general phrases in case your specific searches don't yet demonstrate blended search results.
- Make notes about the blended results you see, such as when videos show up, news posts, maps and local listings, etc.
Refining your content-diversification strategy today will put you in good stead for the future.
Internet advertising: $US65 billion this year, and growing
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080626-Internet-advertising-US65-billion-this-year.html?source=cmailer
Monday, 30 June 2008: Spending on internet advertising is set to total more than $US65.2 billion this year and will grow 15% to 20% a year, reaching $US106.6 billion in 2011, according to forecasts by research firm IDC.
The forecast for 2008 will account for 10% of spending across all media, and the prediction for 2011 will see internet advertising account for 13.5% of all media spending.
The highest spender is the United States by far, projected to spend more than $US45 billion for online advertising by 2011, and more than $US265 billion for all other forms.
John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC, told marketingcharts.com: “By the end of the forecast period, spending for internet advertising will trail direct mail – the third-largest form of advertising – by more than $30 billion, while spending on TV and print ads will each be nearly twice as great as for online ads.”
New scan technology to connect the online and offline worlds
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080701-New-scan-technology-to-connect-the-online-and-offline-worlds.html?source=cmailer
Tuesday, 1 July 2008: Putting your website address at the bottom of an ad may tempt the odd customer to check you out online, but imagine if they could go to your website just by taking a photo with their mobile phone?
That is precisely the prospect being promoted by a new Australian company Qmcodes founded by entrepreneurs including former Hitwise co-owner Andrew Barlow.
Qmcodes works by putting a small, interesting looking barcode on any magazine or newspaper article or advertisement. Then all any person with a 3G phone needs to do is take a photo of the barcode to bring up a website with related content.
According to the company a similar kind of technology has operated in Japan since 2003, and it has already conducted a test run in Australia through free street mag Vice.
The technology holds out all sorts of possibilities for discount deals or other promotional tricks that clever marketing and advertising sorts can dream up. A key barrier, however, will be uptake of 3G enabled phones – but Telstra’s recent launch of its national 3G network could mean that is now just a matter of time.
Online retailing: the growth will slow
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Premium-Articles/Industry-Trends/20080423-Online-retailing-the-growth-will-slow.html
Extracts: Consumers have taken to online shopping with enthusiasm, but the industry is set to lose momentum.
The $16 billion online retailing industry, which includes e-tailers, mail-order houses and online auction sites, has enjoyed five years of strong growth as consumers have moved online. The future will not be quite as good.
This industry has grown by 8.1% a year on average over the past five years as consumer confidence in online security and technology has grown. Pet supplies and cosmetics found 2006-07 to be a particularly good year. Growth in the number of internet connections, along with a rise in PC density, has also increased sales.
Mail-order houses are more established compared to electronic shopping, so they experienced a moderate contraction in their share of total retail sales. The main cause of this has been a shift in the purchasing patterns of consumers from catalogues to the internet.
IBISWorld forecasts that the industry will grow by 4.7% a year over the five years to 2012-13.
In 2008-09, industry revenue is forecast to grow thanks to a rise in disposable income and growth in household consumption. In 2009-10, industry revenue is expected to increase, but declines in the consumer sentiment index and weaker growth in disposable incomes will have an impact. In 2010-11, industry revenue will be supported by stronger GDP growth.
By 2011-12, industry revenue is expected to benefit from anticipated growth in disposable income and a recovery in the consumer sentiment index. In 2012-13, industry revenue is expected to continue a pattern of growth, with change in the unemployment rate along with stronger GDP growth predicted to bode well for retailers over the year.
This industry has experienced a convergence between traditional retailers and pure internet-based operators. This trend is forecast to continue into the outlook period as operators merge to retain profits and market shares.
Another trend that is set to emerge over the outlook period is lower priced products and cheaper delivery costs.
This industry is forecast to become increasingly competitive as an influx of players give consumers more options to choose from. Industry operators are also forecast to increase their level of after sales service in an attempt to keep customers coming back to their site.
CafeScreen’s win with technology
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Premium-Articles/EntrepreneurOnline/20080514-CafeScreens-win-with-technology-.html?source=cmailer
What is CafeScreen? We place big digital screens in cafes. The screens carry advertising and information and entertainment, targeting the CBD business professional. We also supply free WiFi internet hotspots in CBD cafes that are a bonus to the customers who increasingly are conducting office meetings, desk research or working on a laptop.
AB Online Advertising Expenditure Report - December 2007 Quarter
http://www.iabaustralia.com.au/OEAR_-_Dec2007.pdf
Online advertising expenditure in Australia for the fourth-quarter 2007 (3 months ended 31 December 2007) totalled $378.75 million, the largest fourth-quarter recorded. This is an increase of $31 million (or 8.9%) from the third-quarter 2007 (3 months ended 30 September), and is an increase of $61.75 million (or 19.5%) from the fourth-quarter 2006.
General Display advertising and Classifieds advertising accounted for 28% and 26% of the total advertising expenditure for the second-quarter 2007, respectively, while Search & Directories advertising comprised the remaining 46%. Finance, Computers & Communications and Motor Vehicles sectors continue to be the dominant industries using General Display advertising, and comprise over 50% of the General Display spending. Recruitment continues to be the leading category for Classified Advertising expenditure, followed by Real Estate, then Automotive.
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