The future of successful marketing is relevance.

We now live in an age where consumers have developed selective hearing as a defense mechanism against being inundated by thousands of marketing messages every day. Your potential customers are time-shifting, downloading and channel surfing. Most of them research purchases online and many of them rely on the recommendations of those they respect in their social networks.

Interruption marketing is under threat. Customers are in control. You best give them what they’re looking for.

This warning extends to online marketers too.

Ranking highly in search (either organic or paid) isn’t good enough if you had to “game” the system to get there. Link-baiting and link farming often results in disappointment for the consumer who has wasted time visiting a site that doesn’t really address their needs, or lured them there under false pretenses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

Posted by Matthew Creamer at Adage.com

Internet Now Commands 24% of Ad Spending to TV’s 22%

In what’s believed to be a first for a major ad market, internet advertising has overtaken TV ad spending in the U.K.

Web advertising now accounts for almost 24% of ad spending in the U.K., compared to TV, which has a 22% share. These figures come from a biannual report from Internet Advertising Bureau in the U.K. and were first reported by Reuters.

But before you get too excited, consider that the U.K. TV market is a highly restricted one with a massive player that doesn’t take ads (BBC) and one that’s been particularly battered during the recession. On top of that, online spending in the U.K. has been anything but immune to the recession, with its torrid rates of growth seen as recently as early 2008 falling off dramatically.

The new order is helped by the abundance of cheap computing technology and high broadband penetration in the U.K. And it doesn’t particularly come as a surprise when you consider that the TV market is so beat up that advertisers are increasingly hanging their hopes on a relaxation of rules barring product placement in programming.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

So its a year since the big crash of 2008. For many businesses its been a year of pain, staff cut-backs, revised budgets and knife-edge survival.

Last year, as it became apparent that the economy was about to go down the toilet, I opined that we were experiencing a turning point in media and marketing history. Old media models were under threat, new media was on the rise. Media consumption habits were changing rapidly and savvy marketers were aware of this. I suggested that the looming economic crisis would only hasten these changes.

Now, as the world lurches out of the worst of the downturn it appears significant change has taken place and the ones who are struggling to cope are those sticking to their old methods.

Many businesses have already charted a new course in the new economy, but for those just beginning to think about their marketing plans here are 7 new marketing rules for the recovery economy:

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

From David James in BRW Magazine 3-9 September 2009

Managers rely heavily on advertising to make sales – but what if advertising fails to keep up with audiences.

A research note written in July by Matthew Robson, 15, for the investment bank Morgan Stanley in London has caused a stir among fund managers trying to assess the future of the media.

The note, described by the back as “one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen”, alluded to a deep problem in the media business that has yet to be solved.

Advertising, the main revenue source of most forms of commercial media, is losing its credibility and means of access.

Robson opined that even in an online environment, teenagers find advertising “extremely annoying and pointless”.

Viewed as a product, advertising has demonstrated almost no innovation for decades. An advertisement in a newspaper or on television is little different to an ad of 50 years ago and online equivalents are mainly old-media techniques migrated into the digital environment. Ads on websites, for example, are typically electronic versions of those of either print of television. The technology may be more sophisticated but the basic structure and tactics have altered little.

The one exception is the introduction of am online search capability, probably the only seminal change since the Second World War. This favours new media and has changed the economics of advertising.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

The 4th annual Australasian Media and Broadcasting Congress will be held in Sydney from 31 August to 3 September 2009 and I am honoured to have been invited to present on two panels at this years event in what promises to be some vigorous and topical discussions.

Looking at the program I realised that I am the only marketing blogger to be presenting at the event, so I’d like to think I can be a strong representative of the Australian marketing blogger community.

Therefore, I’d like your input. What would you like to see addressed or mentioned in the panels I am involved with? What issues do you feel need covering? What questions would you like to see asked?

Please leave your thoughts & suggestions in the comments section of this post.

Here are the two panels I will be involved in…

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

Did you realise that the Internet is now the most consumed media in Australia?

According to the 2009 Nielsen Annual Internet and Technology Report the average Australian spends 16.1 hours per week online. This is compared to TV at 12.0 hours per week, Radio at 8.8 hours, Video at 5.4 hours, Online radio at 4.6 hours, PC video at 4.6 hours, mobile at 3.7 hours, newspaper at 2.8 hours and magazines at 2 hours.

Hold on….Australians spend more time online than consuming TV & Newspaper combined? More time online than Radio, Newspaper and Magazines combined?

So the big question for business is: are your marketing resources being allocated to the right media?

Why does the average business automatically resort to TV / Radio/ Press when devising a marketing campaign?

Of course there are issues of target markets, cost-effectiveness and clutter with all media decisions, but I am alarmed by the number of businesses still marketing like it was 1999.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

From Adnews magazine 31 July 2009

Nearly 80% of surveyed young Australian mums-to-be use the internet to research a purchase, according to a study conducted by Kidspot.

The online research surveyed 2982 Australian woman who were either mothers or or pregnant in March 2009.

In other findings from the survey, 65% of respondents have re-considered grocery brands purchased since becoming a mum.

The largest brand transience was in laundry soap and spot removers, with 55% either changing brands or intending to do so in this category after becoming pregnant of having children.

Informing 89% of young mothers’ purchase decision, word-of-mouth is the most dominant influence, with online second at 53% way ahead of TV (34%) and magazines (29%).

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

This post originally appeared at Marketing Magazine in July 2009:

The digitisation of media has led to a power shift in the producer/publisher relationship.

Marshall McLuhan famously pointed out in 1964 that the medium is the message, and 45 years later it’s possible to say that the message is the medium, or that it’s the package not the platform.

Prior to the easy digitisation of media it was the publishers, television and radio networks, and record companies who were in control. They owned the medium and decided what to publish, how much to charge and how much to pay the producers of their content. The media definitely called the shots.

Today we have a situation where the costs of publication are much lower and the lines are blurring between various media – now it’s all about the package rather than the platform.

Musicians can record their music in home studios and release it independently, bypassing record companies and maximising their profits from sales. A wine retailer, like Gary Vaynerchuk, can start a video blog site and use his exuberant personality to build a considerable national, and international audience. A budding writer, like Tim Ferriss of the 4-Hour Work Week, can start a blog, build an audience, transfer that to a book launch, public speaking tours, media appearances and international fame.

Comedy duo Hamish and Andy are prime examples of a package that traverses media platforms. The TODAY Network Drive time team can be seen and heard on radio, online, on various television shows from Rove to Spicks and Specks to Thank God You’re Here. They’re a multi-media package.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

Over at Marketing Magazine I have a new piece titled Its the package not the platform which discusses how the digitisation of media has led to a power shift in the producer/publisher relationship.

I believe that today we have a situation where the costs of publication are much lower and the lines are blurring between various media – now it’s all about the package rather than the platform.

You can read the article here. Please feel free to add your thoughts to the discussion in the comments section.

Popularity: 1%

I’ve been reading Neil Shoebridge in BRW for  years and admire the fact that he always tells it like it is. In the current issue of BRW he is doing just that. His piece, “Advertising shift permanent” will be bad news for traditional media owners who think that things will bounce back post-recession.

Shoebridge notes that executives in FTA television and newspaper, who have suffered most from the advertising downturn,  believe that the good times will return soon and that the worst is over.

But speaking to marketers and media agency executives, Shoebridge reveals that the drop in ad spending is part of a much greater shift, rather than the economic cycle.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%