United Business Media announced Thursday that four issues of Information Week this year will be available solely as downloadable interactive PDFs.
The publication is calling these four PDFs “InformationWeek Green Issues.” and said it will plant a tree for each of the first 5,000 downloads of each of the four issues in conjunction with American Forests.
Whilst I applaud the efforts to reforest the planet, I'd personally like to see a more significant move coming from publishers who would like us to take digital magazine more seriously - get us genuine performance data!
Over the years, publishers have dodged major questions about digital versions of magazines, almost never giving details of download numbers, open numbers, pages consumed, advertisements clicked or unsubscribe rates. Many have hidden behind the "well when we send out a print magazine we can't tell you how many people actually read them either" line, which whilst true hardly is comparable. Digital versions are, by there nature, able to provide stats. I know this by having had "private" discussions with publishers, so it's obvious to me that if data is not forthcoming it's probably because it's not that impressive.
Result - As a rule the agency does not encourage support of this format. We are strong advocates for print (our own research proves that magazines DO still get read) and obviously we do a boat load of web advertising.
Personally I'm frustrated - I really do want to support digital formats and think the industry as a whole would benefit enormously if we have data to help us understand them and evaluate sensibly. Perhaps these special issues will provide us with more data...I will keep you posted.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
A master class in using social media for a business
In these times of high stress and depression it's always nice to find a story that brightens the day. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:
We all know the business world has become obsessed with finding ways to use social media to promote their brand. It's a delicate balance and most companies struggle with developing an appropriate approach - mainly because the marketing department is incorrectly set up to handle and exploit this new media environment (but that's for another blog). In this instance, Irish airline company Ryanair has illustrated they do at least have a clear strategy of dealing with bloggers.
Fantastic !
:-)
We all know the business world has become obsessed with finding ways to use social media to promote their brand. It's a delicate balance and most companies struggle with developing an appropriate approach - mainly because the marketing department is incorrectly set up to handle and exploit this new media environment (but that's for another blog). In this instance, Irish airline company Ryanair has illustrated they do at least have a clear strategy of dealing with bloggers.
Fantastic !
:-)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Does the industry have the courage to say no?
If the report in the recent Advertising Age is true then the media and advertising industry needs to take a good hard look at itself. And frankly it's going to need to get itself a set of "chicken nuggets" large enough to avoid being held to ransom.
In case you have not heard, some of the biggest advertisers in the market including GM and Budweiser owners Anheuser-Busch are insisting they be given 70 or even 120 days to pay bills related to advertising activities.
In an industry that is already reeling from reduced spending levels, such an attitude is effectively blackmailing any supplier who might be in the unfortunate position to have to rely on this business to survive. It's a shifting of credit from banks (who know better than to subsidize these giants) to the small companies across the industry. It's classic corporate bullying of the very worst kind.
This will result in only one thing - faster and more complete destruction of the industry. No agency can survive on 70 days credit - especially since that's almost never the reality and payments almost always arrive later than the stipulated time. Even large media owners will suffer severe cash flow issues if enough giant advertisers pull the same stunt.
Obviously there are ways to reduce exposure to this. Firstly it is a refusal to accept these terms. If you have succeeded in being viewed as more than just another commodity, then many client contacts will fight tooth and nail to get you supported, as we oursleves have seen in many contract negotiations. Secondly it is possible to insist that the advertiser takes responsibility for paying media invoices directly (thus enabling the media owners to say no to the business or accept floating the campaign themselves). Thirdly it is to walk away from the business and look for more sustainable accounts elsewhere.
As someone who runs a small business and strives everyday to be honest with suppliers and staff, there's something inherently despicable about companies that advertize brand attributes about positive behaviour, play on the heart strings of the American spirit and portray themselves as bringing positive influence into peoples lives when behind the scenes they are prepared to screw an entire segment of small companies. Survival at the expense of others should not be acceptable and they should be called on it (well done to Ad Age for publicizing this).
As you can see I'm not buying it...
In case you have not heard, some of the biggest advertisers in the market including GM and Budweiser owners Anheuser-Busch are insisting they be given 70 or even 120 days to pay bills related to advertising activities.
In an industry that is already reeling from reduced spending levels, such an attitude is effectively blackmailing any supplier who might be in the unfortunate position to have to rely on this business to survive. It's a shifting of credit from banks (who know better than to subsidize these giants) to the small companies across the industry. It's classic corporate bullying of the very worst kind.
This will result in only one thing - faster and more complete destruction of the industry. No agency can survive on 70 days credit - especially since that's almost never the reality and payments almost always arrive later than the stipulated time. Even large media owners will suffer severe cash flow issues if enough giant advertisers pull the same stunt.
Obviously there are ways to reduce exposure to this. Firstly it is a refusal to accept these terms. If you have succeeded in being viewed as more than just another commodity, then many client contacts will fight tooth and nail to get you supported, as we oursleves have seen in many contract negotiations. Secondly it is possible to insist that the advertiser takes responsibility for paying media invoices directly (thus enabling the media owners to say no to the business or accept floating the campaign themselves). Thirdly it is to walk away from the business and look for more sustainable accounts elsewhere.
As someone who runs a small business and strives everyday to be honest with suppliers and staff, there's something inherently despicable about companies that advertize brand attributes about positive behaviour, play on the heart strings of the American spirit and portray themselves as bringing positive influence into peoples lives when behind the scenes they are prepared to screw an entire segment of small companies. Survival at the expense of others should not be acceptable and they should be called on it (well done to Ad Age for publicizing this).
As you can see I'm not buying it...
Monday, February 16, 2009
What price content?
I was listening to a very interesting debate from the Charlie Rose program about the future of newspapers with Walter Isaacson of "Time," Robert Thomson of "Wall Street Journal" and Mort Zuckerman of "The New York Daily News".
A couple of items caught my attention. Firstly the comment that Google devalues everything - the argument being that through Google, advertisers can target ads anywhere on the web regardless and without thought towards the content quality against which the ads run. That's true, although as someone who focuses on audiences, I also have to note that audience quality is also a highly questionable sales item that I have rarely observed to have been delivered or proven in reality (no site I ever worked with could give me any reasonable guarantee my ad was being seen by anyone I was actually trying to target).
The second item I picked up on was the comment that publishers are in danger of loosing the relationship with readers in order to chase revenue from the advertiser. Now that has often been put forward as the case in many B2B fields where magazines shamelessly would jump on the next "hot" topic in order to generate ad revenue. Is this any different now on the web?
I would argue that it is. The problem is that now site designers are looking at all the ways they can integrate ad messages into sites - leading advertising to become so intertwined with content - that in many cases users are getting even less original content and more "ad created content" than ever before.
So at what point does this turn full circle. Does the subscription model ensure freedom from this advertising/content bond? If so can publishers who have so far offered content for free ever realistically charge for it and move away from advertising. With so much out there do readers even value content quality as much as they used to especially the "web generation" who have probably little loyalty to brands especially when getting news from Google news feeds.
What price content indeed.
A couple of items caught my attention. Firstly the comment that Google devalues everything - the argument being that through Google, advertisers can target ads anywhere on the web regardless and without thought towards the content quality against which the ads run. That's true, although as someone who focuses on audiences, I also have to note that audience quality is also a highly questionable sales item that I have rarely observed to have been delivered or proven in reality (no site I ever worked with could give me any reasonable guarantee my ad was being seen by anyone I was actually trying to target).
The second item I picked up on was the comment that publishers are in danger of loosing the relationship with readers in order to chase revenue from the advertiser. Now that has often been put forward as the case in many B2B fields where magazines shamelessly would jump on the next "hot" topic in order to generate ad revenue. Is this any different now on the web?
I would argue that it is. The problem is that now site designers are looking at all the ways they can integrate ad messages into sites - leading advertising to become so intertwined with content - that in many cases users are getting even less original content and more "ad created content" than ever before.
So at what point does this turn full circle. Does the subscription model ensure freedom from this advertising/content bond? If so can publishers who have so far offered content for free ever realistically charge for it and move away from advertising. With so much out there do readers even value content quality as much as they used to especially the "web generation" who have probably little loyalty to brands especially when getting news from Google news feeds.
What price content indeed.
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