Last week while meeting with a potential new client in Ohio, the VP of Marketing (35 years in the business) said something that has resonated with me the past several days:
“One of our organization’s Core Values is stewardship. But the reality is I break that core value every day when I purchase newspaper advertising. I hate it. When I think about people pulling extra shifts, and all of the hard working people who make our organization great… The fact is I’m taking that capital and our money and wasting it on newspaper advertising. It makes me sick.”
As a long-time media guy, I hear it every day. Traditional media just does not perform like it used to. It’s not coming back folks.
That morning, of course we were having a conversation about “Inbound Marketing” and the amazing transformation that is happening in the marketing universe today.
We talked for some time about the metrics, analytics, ROI, etc. But the real meat of the talk was about targeting our audience personas, creating and delivering educational, relevant and timely health content to those targets. We talked about custom tailored video, personalized communications with our constituents and nurturing relationships with these consumers.
When I proposed a possible Inbound Marketing solution, the only thing he could say was: “I’m in. When can we start?”
I thought I’d share a few recent articles highligting exactly what is going on in this marketing and advertising revolution:
First, last week in a Wall Street Journal Blog NATHALIE TADENA wrote:
“Four of the nation’s five biggest marketers cut their traditional media and online display ad spending in the first half of the year, according to new data from Kantar Media.
According to data from Kantar Media, Procter & Gamble reduced its ad spending on traditional media and display by 17% in the first half of the year. (AP Photo/Al Behrman, File)
Among those cutting spending was Procter & Gamble, the U.S.’s biggest advertiser, which reduced its ad spending in traditional media and display by 17% to $1.32 billion in the first half, compared with the year earlier period, according to Kantar Media.
P&G cut its ad spending by 2.6% in the first quarter and slashed its ad expenditures by nearly a third in the latest quarter, which also marks the end of P&G’s fiscal year, Kantar Media said. However, P&G had an atypically high volume of ad spending in the year-ago second quarter, Kantar Media noted.
Also cutting their spending was AT&T, Comcast Corp and L’Oreal, the report said. AT&T, the third largest advertiser in the U.S. , spent 9.4% less on advertising this year through June, bringing its marketing spending for traditional media and online display for the period to $917.6 million.
P&G’s Chief Executive A.G. Lafley said last month that the company has improved its marketing efforts through an optimized media mix that has a greater digital, mobile, search and social presence.”
In a recent article in Media Post, Joe Mandese wrote: “Global ad spending is back on a healthy expansion track, and much of it — not surprisingly — is coming from the rapid consumer adoption of digital media, which will account for 28.3% of total ad spending by 2016, according to the latest quarterly forecast from Publicis’ ZenithOptimedia unit. At that rate, digital — including both mobile and desktop Internet advertising — will increase its share of ad budgets by more than seven percentage points over 2013, the year ZenithOptimedia baselines its current estimates.
The big losers in terms of ad market share are the major traditional media — including the biggest, TV, which will see its share slide 1.3 percentage points to 38.3% of all ad spending in 2016. The biggest losers will be print media. Collectively, newspapers’ and magazines’ share of ad spending will erode 5.2 percentage points to a 19.6% share of total ad spending by 2016.”
I am not saying the Traditional Media is “Dead.” I do think, however, that it is heading in that direction. What do you think? To learn more about inbound marketing, click here!
Until next time,
~Jim
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