Identifying media trends and advertising research for newspaper executives

Produced by Andrea Loubier on 2 May 2005

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  Musicians Getting Paid To Mention Brand Names In Songs
  

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  Word of Mouth Is Most Powerful Sales Tool for Cars
  

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  E-Mail Remains an Effective Marketing Tool
  

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  Online Yellow Pages More Effictive for Consumers, More Lucrative For Vendors
  

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  Consumers Now Spending More Time In Front Of Their Computers Than Reading Print
  

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  Best Received Online Ads Draw Lessons From Print Media
  

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  Audit Bureau of Circulations Feels Skepticism in Australia
  

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  Magazines Move to Incorporate Mobile Marketing Strategy
  

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  Mobile Phones a Marketing Channel Just Like Any Other in Asia
  

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  Blackberry Use More Than Doubles in One Year
  

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  Advertiser Moves Editorial Off Front Page Of Sports Section
  

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  Mobile Billboards Rise In Popularity
  

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  Asian Market Prefers Outdoor Advertising
  

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  Terrestrial Radio's Greatest Strength: Free and Local
  

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  Urban Radio Touted As Secret To Target Marketing
  

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  Product Placement Effectiveness Proven
  

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  Local People Meters Still Struggling For Validity
  

In the latest twist on marketing, rappers now seem to be mentioning brand names in their songs in hopes of getting paid for the "endorsement." McDonalds has even offered to pay any rapper to mention their Big Mac sandwich in their songs. Not everyone who name-drops gets paid. However, some still just do it because it's an important part of the lyric, and others just didn't choose the right name to drop.

According to a survey of 7,000 respondents recently released by BIGresearch of Columbus, Ohio, USA, the number one medium of influence in the car-buying field is word-of-mouth (25 percent of men and 28 percent of women ranked it as most influential). Beyond that, 22.6 percent felt articles about vehicles were most effective, followed by broadcast television, newspapers, magazines, cable television, and radio at 19.6 percent, 17 percent, 15.7 percent, 11 percent, and 10.9 percent respectively.

Despite spam, filters, and phishing scams, e-mail marketing remains an effective tool. An average of 90 percent of marketing e-mail is delivered, 33 percent is opened, and 8 percent result in click-throughs. Consumer attitudes toward e-mail also remain good. Some 45 percent feel it's a great way for companies to stay in touch with customers, and 44 percent would choose e-mail over the telephone as the preferred method of communication. On the negative side, 2 percent find e-mail to be an aggravation, 6 percent find it to be a chore and 9 percent feel they spend too much time with it.

A study by comScore indicates that consumers can more quickly find what they are looking for by using local yellow pages online than they can by using the big search engines like AOL, Yahoo and Google. While most searches are still done on the biggies (66 percent), consumers are able to get where they want to be in 4.6 clicks on local yellow pages rather than the 7.6 clicks it take at the larger engines. The search also showed that consumers spent 5.1 to 14.7 percent more when they found vendors through local searches.

Online advertising in Europe now accounts for more spending than either radio or outdoor. And with new studies showing that consumers spend as much time in front of their computers as they do listening to radio and twice as much time as they spend reading newspapers or magazines, that figure is only likely to go higher. Europe has been leading this trend, but there are now signs that the United States is quickly moving in the same direction.

CNET Networks, Ignited Minds, and NOP World's Starch Communications have conducted a study to see what kinds of ads are the most effective online. Their findings indicate that ads which combine print advertising's use of powerful images that "pop" with animation draw users attention best and are subsequently able to direct their attention toward a message with visual flow. The hope is that the study will move discussion of online advertising away from "should you do it" and toward "how to do it."

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) in Australia has announced steps to review its auditing practices so that the industry can have confidence in the figures it reports. The move was prompted by circulation anomalies discovered at B&T by rival AdNews which persisted with its claims in court despite assurances from all involved. When it was subsequently proved that free copies had been counted as part of paid circulation figures, the skepticism surrounding the credibility of the ABC was reinforced.

Celebrity-watch magazines People and Teen People have decided to create an opt-in mobile facet to their marketing strategy. Subscribers pay US$3.99 to get daily news messages delivered through their cell phone or handheld. Parent company Time, Inc. hopes to create a community of loyal readers which will later become a marketing audience. It will help the magazines not only extend their brand reach, but also create interaction with subscribers between publication dates. New revenue streams like premium rate SMS services, paid content, and commercial database sponsorship could be other advantages.

Asia, where cell phones have become such a part of the culture that relative burn paper effigies of cell phones at funerals so the dead won't be without them in the afterlife, is about to teach the West a thing or two about mobile marketing. While marketers in Asian countries have faced fewer regulations related to cell phones than those in Europe and the United States, advertising agencies are paying close attention to lessons already learned as the mobile market prepares to take off.

The number of people subscribing to Blackberry services more than doubled from 1.07 million to 2.52 million in a single year. This impressive increase for the wireless e-mail service is indicative of the overall growing popularity of wireless/mobile devices and signals a bright future for the Canadian firm that makes it.

In an unprecedented move, The Sydney Morning Herald allowed Toyota to take over the front page of its sports section, moving all editorial content elsewhere. Critics of the newspapers called foul, while proponents said it was about time newspapers joined the ranks of television, radio and magazines in blurring the lines between advertising and editorial. Others claimed the creative solution for the advertiser was worth the additional revenue.

While there may only be as many as 1,000 mobile billboards on the road in the United States at any one time, manufacturers of the specialised vehicles report that demand for additional ones is rising steadily. The mobile boards attract attention for their novelty, and some consumers even ask to have their pictures taken with the vehicles. Outdoor in general has experienced a surge in popularity as consumers become ever more adept at avoiding television and radio ads.

The Chinese don't avoid television commercials with quite the same vigor as do their western counterparts, but only 16 percent report that they pay attention to them. Most ignore them or switch channels. Likewise, most also skip ads in newspapers or magazines. But the story is different with outdoor advertising, even if advertisers haven't quite caught on yet. The China Advertising Association reports that outdoor reaches 20 percent of the consumer market, but only gets about 5 percent of advertising revenue. And people aren't opposed to this form of advertising, believing it's interesting to look at and makes their cities look more prosperous.

Many in traditional radio have been cowed by the threat of satellite radio, iPods, and MP3 players in recent months. However, Triad radio says they have not seen an erosion of their customer base and don't see the other listening media as a significant threat since they can't offer two of traditional radio's strengths: It's free and local. They feel listeners value getting information and commentary relevant to their community, something not possible in the other mediums. Plus satellite radio has only a few million listeners, traditional radio touches 95 percent of the population in any given week, according to Arbitron.

At the 7th "Power of Urban Radio" symposium in New York, radio was touted as the secret weapon for reaching the urban market. It is a market that is increasingly multi-cultural and which wields increasingly large amounts of buying power. A few national brands have begun to exploit the market, but many more have still to discover radio's ability to target this consumer group.

In a recent episode of "The Apprentice" Pontiac's new Solstice was featured as the subject of the teams' project for that episode. Pontiac▓s web site traffic jumped 1,400 percent following the episode and within 41 minutes, 1,000 certificates to be the first to buy a special edition of the car were gone. An additional 19,000 signed up to be on the waiting list should any of the 1,000 initial consumers change their minds.

The Media Rating Council (MRC) granted conditional -- rather than full -- accreditation to Nielsen's Local People Meters (LPMs) in New York City and offered suggestions on how to improve the LPM systems. Since it was created 40 years ago, the MRC recently asked Congress to reaffirm its role as the industry's independent self-regulatory body. Nielsen did not wait to get full accreditation before rolling out the LPMs to other markets and has been criticised, especially since they hold a monopoly over television ratings.