Buying Media in the 21st Century

This article in the International Herald Tribune caught my attention because it talks about the full court press by Google, eBay and Yahoo to transform the way traditional media advertising is purchased. Just as my company is transforming the method of creating traditional ads and direct mail via the internet, so too is media buying going to change.

The web has been a powerful force in bring transparency to the price of all kinds of things. Want to know the market price of almost anything? Check it on eBay. Interested in what the going rate for your industry keywords are on Google? A few clicks will tell you. Bringing transparency to media buying will certainly allow small to medium sized companies (without the services of a media buying firm) to easily select and buy advertising.

But with transparency comes a squeeze play -- as old line media are exposed with real market pricing online. Look for the large buyers to squeeze (an evermore fragmented) media with falling readership or viewership down to the real value. As true audience measurement is automated via online tools and panels this could all come together in a dynamic media ad buying marketplace where pricing isn't locked in as it is today...but fluctuates by the hour. Think about the transparency of the stock market. This Nasdaq future could be reality in the next decade for the ad buying world.

PURL Jam

I just returned from a Variable personalization conference in Phoenix sponsored by PIA/GATF. All the buzz was about the internet and tying in direct mail into Personalized URL websites or PURL's.

The optimism was palpable as I heard several printers in attendance offer up PURL's as a solution to this or that opportunity. Finally a real solution in a stretch of years that has offered more than enough challenges! Promises of dramatically higher response rates abound. Finally, a new way to qualify prospects, generate sign-ups, and RSVP's for brand events.

While PURL's *are* a good solution to extending direct marketing campaigns to the internet and creating a true cross-media campaign, they shouldn't be viewed as a panacea or a substitute for actual creative ideas and good marketing thought processes.

Here's why:

1. Novelty effect - remember how excited you were to get your first email? Enough said.

2. PURL's as enacted by many are purely tactical -- "Isolated Islands of Interactivity".

You'll recognize these campaigns when you respond to more than one PURL and the second, third one doesn't recognize your previous response, your current status, or seek to advance the relationship. This is like running into a friendly but forgetful chap who always is glad to see you, but asks the same questions over and over and over again. "Do you have a family?" "Where do you work?"... all nice things to ask - just not more than once.

If you aren't feeding data back to the master record, tying it together and acting like you listen - it's an opportunity lost.

3. Counting on dramatically better response rates to keep customers happy.

Some are touting response rates that are 3x higher than traditional direct mail response rates, which would be true cause to celebrate...but buyer beware. One campaign example that I recently examined counted consumers hitting the Welcome Page of the personalized site as a response.

I'm sorry, but counting responses to those hitting a welcome page (and bailing) is -- like counting those that opened your envelope, but didn't respond to your offer -- like counting folks who hear the first 5 seconds of your commercial before changing channels.

Perhaps the delta between true responders and those bailing after the initial click-through should be referred to as the "novelty responders", or the "I didn't feel your offer was that interesting" responders.

There may be a way to lure these "novelty responders" into a relationship at some point...but it hasn't happened yet...and they shouldn't be counted like they have.

Let's all agree: PURL's are a good step in right direction. Those who use this tool with creativity and thought will reap the most benefit.

photo © Dani Plana Trenchs for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike

Election results are coming in

As I watch election results stream in tonight from the mid-term election, I've been reflecting upon the ongoing election we've been witnessing over these last few years -- the voting that consumers have been doing with their mouses.

Newspaper readership has been slipping steadily over the last few years, but nothing like the results from the latest circulation reports. A steady slide has turned into a steeper dive, as almost every major metro paper in the study saw declines. Fully 22 of the top 25 daily papers saw declines in the 6 month period ending Sept. 2006!

Sunday papers, once the sacred cows of publishing, also saw steep declines.

Here is the summary.

Some of the steepest 6 month declines:
Los Angeles Times: (-8.0%)
The Philadelphia Inquirer: (-7.5%)
The Boston Globe: (-6.7%)
The Oregonian, Portland: (-6.8%)

The scope and size of these numbers is shocking even to those of us that expected it. Are we witnessing the tipping point? With circulation slipping, the pressure will be on to cut advertising rates (pressure from customers getting less bang for the buck, and pressure from ad sales departments to make the numbers). As more customers test online media for local advertising and find success, the flight away from traditional newsprint will continue.

Where will their numbers bottom out? They don't have to go to zero mind you...they only need to go below the breakeven level needed to support the incredibly high fixed cost infrastructure.

Most of the editorial and sales staff would still be needed in an electronic version, so much of that stays. Exactly where that breakeven point is only the newspaper knows, but as the numbers continue to skid, look for more bad headlines.

You'll see at some point, I predict, that certain papers will do what the trade magazine Electronic Publishing announced in March 2006: that it would stop printing altogether. (Nevermind the irony that a magazine called Electronic Publishing ever was *printed* to begin with.) The point here is that the overhead needed to publish and deliver an electronic edition is much less than the that of a traditional printed newspaper.