By Barry Cox W here should retailers focus their advertising budgets? It’s a question for companies demanding high impact advertising with shrinking budgets. There has been a move that has traditional media struggling to remain significant. One example is radio. Terrestrial radio has lost much of its integrity because of an industry trend towards “over” automation. Radio has always profited from their ability to deliver on the promise of “live and hap- pening” now content. That is no longer true. The majority of radio programming is now pre-recorded minutes or days in advance of broadcast. The recent Fort McMurray wild- fires provided insight into this pre-recorded phenomenon happening in radio. As local residents were under a mandatory evacua- tion order there was with little to no informa- tion on the safest routes to take or direction of the fire by local radio. In subsequent TV news reports many of the people trying to evacuate were furious their local radio stations were still playing music as if nothing was happening. Terrestrial stations are also losing ground to satellite radio because they no longer are viewed as live and local and offer a mobile music that you can offer regardless of where you are be it home, office or travel. Local newspapers are also falling victim to a parallel problem. Newspapers used to be able to ask gigantic rates for a full page advertise- ment. Those days are over. People are moving from print to digital copies. The equivalent to a full page advertisement does not transi- tion to digital editions. Print media in general is struggling to justify high printing costs against a more inexpensive online process.
cials. Streaming boxes are becoming popular and content does not include commercials.
However, there is still one form of TV programming that broadcasters still label as “ad skip proof” and those would be live sporting events. Customers continue to watch sports, and the embedded commercials, live in real time. For some sporting events the commercials are sometimes bigger than the game of event itself and for these events, broadcasters get big advertising dollars.
So where do advertisers devote their budgets? The answer is mystifying.
Well industry studies report that TV commercial viewing percentages have not suffered from the new consumer behaviors and in fact have risen. That appears conceivable but it would be extreme to suggest that it will continue. Sporting events are undoubtedly the lone positive force boosting those survey results. Commercial time during sports events is highly sought after by clients. Even the screen overlay has become a popular sponsorship area for items like replays or kickoffs. They all want TV exposure during sports events. It is not a coincidence major TV service providers are locking up broadcast rights in long term deals and even investing in the ownership of franchises to get these rights. Stadiums and arenas are hot commodities with major compa- nies wanting to secure naming rights long term, to get their brand message to the consumer over a long time and associate their brand with the local professional or semi-pro team.
Advertising in online news services and magazines is also growing
In sports like NASCAR and Premier League Soccer, the league itself has a title sponsor, but lets be honest that is only viable to the largest of companies with multi-million dollar market- ing budgets.
Celebrity endorsements and in show product placement advertising is still an effective form of advertising and one that many use to get their product spotlight time.
New age billboards in high traffic areas, mass transit stations, elevators or anywhere people have to wait in lines have become popular and the cost and quality of large LCD panels provides significant improvements over static displays. Advertising in online news services and magazines is also growing. These items are often downloaded to portable devices and read by customers when Internet connections or cellular service is not available. Companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and Pinterest supply opportu- nities for clients that are tremendously valuable. Their ability to “micro target” a cohort or niche have never been available before like they are today. Advertisers have also never had access to the astonishing degree of detail about campaign reach and sales conversions for their marketing dollars plus have the opportunity to get global exposure to new markets. You do not have to change your advertising focus today if you are using radio, traditional TV and print media as they will all remain relevant for the immediate future, but you better start planning and partnering on social and other interactive media forms and change is coming. By far the new king of advertising is social media.
Newspapers used to be able to ask gigantic rates for a full
page advertisement. Those days are over.
Basic television is another former advertising giant struggling in a new age. The way people watch TV has changed as digital TV allows customers to record shows and skip commer-
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JUNE 2016 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS
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