The Case for print media advertising in the internet age

The current landscape of audience fragmentation, Internet advertising, and required accountability for advertising expenditures is exerting great pressure on the ability of main-stream, ad-supported media to survive. How can established media such as printed magazines, newspapers, and printed inserts survive? We start our examination of the topic by reviewing the media usage patterns of U.S. adults and advertising expenditure data from 2004. The average American adult over the age of 18 consumed a total of 9 hours, 35 minutes of media per day (Lindsay, 2006): 44.5% of media time was spent with TV; 27.8% with radio; 5% each with Internet, newspaper and recorded music; and 6% with magazines and books combined. The amount of advertising dollars spent on newspapers, consumer magazines, and business papers ads (including business magazines) accounts for approximately 40% of all media advertising expenditures in 2004 (Veronis Suhler Stevenson, 2004). Broadcast and cable TV and radio represent an additional 44% of the media advertising dollars spent. Although the Internet advertising category (including search and display advertising) was significantly smaller, it grew at a faster rate than all other media. The desire for advertising accountability starts with this question: Does advertising affect consumer buying behavior? The impact of advertising has been measured on a variety of outcome measures such as aggregate sales for a brand, individual brand choice behavior, and the intermediate effects of awareness, beliefs and attitudes towards the advertised brand. The relatively few research studies that have examined the impact of advertising in different media show that print advertising performs well compared with other media. For example: * In a study of the top 100 advertisers, higher correlations were found between a firm’s sales and the amount of print advertising it bought vs. sales and the amount it spent on broadcast advertising. * Magazine advertising was more effective than network TV advertising for promoting SUV brands over a 10-year period. * People who were exposed to printed newspaper advertising had a higher recognition of ad content than those who received an online version of the same advertising message. * For a food franchiser, the best sales resulted from advertising media spent concurrently on primary direct mail and national TV advertising. * In a Doubleclick study, the most influential sources of information affecting purchase decisions, overall, were word-of-mouth and salesperson sources. For individual product categories, printed advertising was the most influential source of information for consumers who purchased personal care / home care products, and the second most influential source for those purchasing consumer electronics and home improvement products. * In a study of newspaper readers, 78% reported that they used newspaper inserts to plan shopping, and 76% said that inserts helped them save money. * Dimensional mail yielded a 5.4% lead generation rate (vs. email at 3.27%), and co-op shared mail produced a 5.47% direct order rate vs. 4.16% for Internet banner ads. While these research studies show the effectiveness of printed advertising, more robust methodologies must be developed in this new era of accountability. Two new audience response metrics are discussed that may deliver on this promise: single source databases and experimental designs. Single source databases such as the Apollo Project provide precise data to advertisers about the impact of exposure to a variety of advertising media on a participant’s response of buying certain products and brands. An example of an experimental design methodology is presented in the book “What Sticks” by Briggs and Stuart (2006). The process begins with the specification of communication objectives at the outset of a campaign to define the use of appropriate metrics. The media mix optimization can be assessed when the outcome data (e.g., change in awareness) are gauged against the cost per response (CPR) for each ad medium. The Briggs and Stuart method may be a good model for all print media owners, publishers, and print services providers who need to prove, with every campaign, that print advertising delivers an acceptable return on the advertiser’s investment

Changes in media mix for leading national advertisers (2003 - 2005)

As new communication technologies, such as the Internet, continue to grow in the United States, advertisers are re-evaluating which media mix will deliver the best return on investment. The magazine, Advertising Age, releases a list of the 100 Leading National Advertisers each year – a list that includes the advertisers’ spending in measured and unmeasured media. The seven measured media categories (newspaper, magazine, television, outdoor, radio, Internet, and Yellow Pages) include the data necessary to analyze the change in advertising spending among these leading national retailers. Using the data from both 2003 and 2005, the researcher explored three questions: 1. Were there significant changes to the distribution of advertising spending by medium between 2003 and 2005? 2. Are there differences in media mix by industry of the advertiser? 3. Has Internet advertising grown at the expense of other media? After performing the necessary data analysis to answer the first question, the researcher is 95% confident that there was a statistically significant increase in radio and Internet advertising between 2003 and 2005. On the other hand, it was also determined that there was a statistically significant decrease in Yellow Pages advertising. After analyzing the data for the second research question, it was determined that there has also been a change in advertising spending by industry by medium. The advertisers from the automotive industry most closely correlated with the overall changes among the leading national advertisers, while other industries had substantially larger increases in spending for Internet and radio advertising. In exploring the third research question regarding Internet advertising spending taking away from other media, the data does not support or reject this claim. Although Internet advertising grew at a statistically significant rate, other media also increased. Using this data set, the one medium that could be losing ground due to Internet advertising is in Yellow Pages advertising. This being said, there are too many variables involved in this study to single out Yellow Pages as a new source for Internet advertising dollars. This study provides a basis for further research using data from future annual releases of Advertising Age’s “100 Leading National Advertisers.” It also could lead a person into further research surrounding the recent growth in radio and Internet advertising as well as the significant reduction in printed Yellow Pages advertising spending

Concepto y Taxonomía de la Industria de la Comunicación

La industria de la comunicación comprende el conjunto de empresas que participan en el mercado de las ideas ofertando algunos contenidos (informativos, persuasivos o de entretenimiento) demandados por variados públicos (audiencia, anunciantes o instituciones) utilizando ciertos medios tecnológicos (impresos, audiovisuales o multimedia). El estudio científico de los aspectos económicos y empresariales de los medios de comunicación tiene en España una historia no superior a los cincuenta años, mientras que otros países como Estados Unidos o Alemania cuentan con más tradición. Sin embargo, las propuestas de clasificación de los sectores de la industria han sido variadas y heterogéneas en todos los casos. Esta investigación pretende aportar un sistema de clasificación a partir del cual se puedan definir los sectores y mercados de la comunicación de un modo integrado tanto en el ámbito académico como en el empresarial y regulatorio

Print advertising media substitution

This quantitative study examined changes to the advertising media mix of leading national advertisers from 2003 and 2005. The advertising channels analyzed were newspaper, magazine, television, outdoor, radio, Internet, and Yellow Pages. Of these seven categories, there was statistically significant growth in radio and Internet advertising, and a statistically significant decrease in traditional Yellow Pages advertising. Differences in advertising spending were found by industry

The Effect of Entertainment in Newspaper and Television News Coverage

In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium amount of entertainment in news coverage of newspapers and television stations. We find that a shift in the inclination to read, expressed by a shift in the (psychological) distance costs, induces both media outlets to incorporate more entertaining elements in news coverage. The introduction of commercial television, however, which leads to a unilateral fall in the distance costs to the television broadcast, yields different results. It induces a negative effect on the profits of both media outlets, and increases price competition. Furthermore, the newspaper offers less while the television channel offers more entertainment. Overall, this leads to a marginalization of informational content, as the television channel gains market shares at the expense of the newspaper

The State of the News Media 2009

Analyzes trends in all major media sectors, with a focus on new business models, social media, and political coverage. Includes special reports on citizen-based media, lessons from the election, and new ventures, as well as an online journalist survey

The Effect of Entertainment in Newspaper and Television News Coverage

In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium amount of entertainment in news coverage of newspapers and television stations. We find that a shift in the inclination to read, expressed by a shift in the (psychological) distance costs, induces both media outlets to incorporate more entertaining elements in news coverage. The introduction of commercial television, however, which leads to a unilateral fall in the distance costs to the television broadcast, yields different results. It induces a negative effect on the profits of both media outlets, and increases price competition. Furthermore, the newspaper offers less while the television channel offers more entertainment. Overall, this leads to a marginalization of informational content, as the television channel gains market shares at the expense of the newspaper.media economics; industrial organization; media bias; horizontal product differentiation; duopoly

Radio advertising decision-making in the Tri-State --: Huntington, West Virginia; Ashland, Kentucky; and Ironton, Ohio radio market

Modern radio came into being November 2, 1920, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The nation’s first federally-licensed radio station, KDKA, broadcast the Harding-Cox election returns: These words changed our world forever…’This is KDKA of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We shall now broadcast the election returns…’ (StratiComm America 2). The first radio announcer, or disc jockey, was ham radio operator Frank Conrad of Westinghouse. In 1919, Conrad played records supplied by a local store in exchange for free plugs on the air, the equivalent of today’s bartering or trading in which stations receive merchandise from a business or company in exchange for radio commercial time (Warner and Buchman 247). The forerunner of today’s KCBS in San Francisco, KQW in San Jose, California, claims to be the first radio station in existence, beginning as far back as 1909. However, KQW accepted no advertising until 1925 (StratiComm America 4). In the beginning, radio advertising was considered in very poor taste. Dr. Lee De Forest, the creator of the vacuum tube, said: What have you done with my child? You have sent him out on the street in rags of ragtime to collect money from all and sundry. You have made of him a laughing-stock of intelligence, surely a stench in the nostrils of the gods of the ionosphere (StratiComm America 4). The founder of NBC, David Sarnoff, said “ ... radio should be a public service medium ‘untainted’ by money-making, and the costs be borne by set manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.” Secretary of commerce at the time and later president of the United States, Herbert Hoover “was shocked at the prospect of radio being ‘drowned in advertising chatter” (StratiComm America 4)

Newscasts as Property: Will Retransmission Consent Stimulate Production of More Local Television News?

The Cable Act of 1992 required, for the first time, that cable systems receive the consent of broadcast stations to retransmit their signals. While the fees that some stations had hoped to extract from the cable systems have generally not materialized, broadcasters may be able to use their expertise in the provision of local news and programming to gain additional cable channel space for this local-interest programming. The Author explores the historical interaction and conflict between cable systems and local broadcasters over retransmission rights. The Author also examines the courts\u27 and FCC\u27s responses to the copyright issues surrounding retransmission. Focusing on the opportunity that the Cable Act of 1992 and technological changes have provided to bring about a flourishing of local interest programming, the Author concludes that it is now time to revisit the question of copyright liability for cable