Advertising effectiveness - the decline of traditional media

There is structural change going on in the world of advertising, in part it is being accelerated by the global downturn.

The structural changes relate to the decline of traditional advertising stalwarts, the yellow pages, print media and television advertising.

Proof of the Problem - Firstly Yellow Pages

Increasing research in the US and Australia has found that the use of the traditional yellow pages is declining.

People are increasingly turning to the Internet to find information, even local information. Some figures suggest that this the use of on-line search can be as high as 80% of all information searches.

Even Wall Street acknowledges that the days of printed directories like Yellow pages are numbered. The Wall Street Journal reported that advertising in US print directories is expected to fall 39% over the next four years. In there words as people migrate enmasse to the web.

Dr Lynella Grant is the author of Yellow Page Smarts, she makes the point that relying on just yellow pages is now longer safe: She makes the points that over half of all customers now go to the internet first to find information even for local products.

Secondly the Print Media

The print media has long been the main source of news, and hence advertising. However, good journalism, even bad comes at a price. The print media's classified and advertising revenues have long funded their journalists and distribution costs. But that is no longer the case.

Internet news is cutting deep in to the traditional print media. Many companies have tried to build business models that are Internet friendly? Albeit that they are extensions of the old business models, such as subscription services. Such models have generally failed, for a variety of reasons, but one in particular dominates all. There is a perception amongst Internet users that information on the net is free or should be free. With so many other sources of information to choose from, browsers simply err away from subscription services to other free sources of information.

Journalists are having debates over the fact if you want good information you need to pay for it. That may be true, but at this stage of the Internets maturity, people appear to be less discerning in the quality of information they receive.

The Canadian Company Dialect has published a list of newspapers around the world that have been closed down,

Television Advertising

I read recently, unfortunately I can not remember the source, that over half the world's television advertising spend is in the USA. Audience fragmentation is a main issue, people have choice now in their visual home entertainment, from free to air television, cable tv, Internet programs, even video games and dvd's etc. This choice range acts to fragment the audience, and even the audience with in a household. Consider the old images from the 1950's and 60's probably even the 70's of families all sitting around one TV watching the hit shows of the day. Now days, it is more likely that mom is watching on one TV, Dad on another, the kids in their rooms either on MSN messenger or playing video games.

Here are some statistics, in the UK there forecasts indicate that advertising revenue is expected to fall by nearly $0.7 Bn US in three years. The USA television bureau is forecasting another 7% decline in advertising accross the sector.

So what is going up

Well not surprising internet advertising is growing at around 10% per annum. Again this is not surprising either when you go back to fundamentals. The media companies whether TV or print provide information and entertainment. But so does the internet!

The yellow pages provided information that was traditional inaccessible - a list of all service providers in a category. But again so does the Internet, but it does so with the user being able to source information of their choice.

So what to do

Firstly, your advertising mix still needs to contain elements of each of the media services. Obviously depending on your target market and budget. Most companies are well versed and educated in advertising through these traditional forms, so there is not much point discussing them further.

Although it is worth mentioning that for small business it may be worth looking at TV advertising as the costs may be more palatable now, relative to the results.

What we would contend is that companies need to have a well considered and balanced marketing mix. A critical element of which is now Social Media Marketing.