Week of April 27, 2009

Madison Avenue Goes Gray

Friday, May 1, 2009

A recent New York Times article details a growing trend of marketing and advertising executives looking to the 50+ demographic as a way to hedge their bets during the economic downturn. Historically, 18-34 and 18-49 have been considered the most lucrative demographic groups (though this is decidedly not the case with radio advertisers). Advertisers are now rethinking their aversion to the 50+ demo for a number of reasons.

First, the dire economic situation has convinced many to leave no stone unturned in looking for new revenue. Second, the sheer size of the baby boom (now 45-63 years old) makes it hard to ignore. Third, changing assumptions about the buying habits of today's 50+ audience have made marketers rethink the conventional wisdom that older consumers are not likely to change their habits.

Finally, the other major reason is that many of those in the 50+ demo are among the wealthiest in our society. As the President and CEO of Hallmark Channels, Henry Schleiff, put it, the baby boomer audience is one "that has assets, not allowances."

Direct Response TV Spots on the Rise

Thursday, April 30, 2009

TV advertising is suffering from the double whammy of the general economic downturn, as well as the rise of the DVR and time shifting by viewers. One are

The one bright spot in TV advertising these days is direct response ads. Previously considered the red-headed stepchildren of the advertising industry, these 60 and 120 second spots, filling TV ad pods previously occupied by 30's are becoming a lifeline for TV station and cable networks. In recent years, direct response ads (DRTV) have not been as common as they used to be, due to the rising cost of TV advertising. Now, they're back with a vengeance as TV stations and networks look for any revenue they can get.

According to AdAge, the #1 DRTV advertiser in 2008 was Proactiv, which has apparently seen increased sales with the increased exposure on TV. Other common spots that showed increased sales and web traffic are the Video Professor computer-training courses (web traffic up 47%) and Rosetta Stone language training (up 19% in web traffic). But not all DRTV clients are increasing. Longtime DRTV favorites like NutriSystem (down 16.5% in the fourth quarter) and the Bowflex from Nautilus (off 42%) have seen big drop offs.

Comcast's New Subscriber Service

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

We've recently written about cable company concerns with Hulu.com and other websites that put video on the air and now there is more evidence that the cable companies are joining the arms race. Comcast Interactive Media created Fancast over a year ago but now is deploying a premium (unnamed as of now) online service for subscribers only. While cable's buildup of their own premium services is in its nascent stage it's clear that unlike the record labels ignoring the growing threat of online music a decade ago, cable is interested in getting out ahead of viewers insatiable appetites for online video.

New Online Metric: GRPs

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A number of ad agencies are getting behind an effort to have the venerable traditional media ad metric, the Gross Ratings Point, adopted by the online ad community. Measuring online campaigns by GRPs has been difficult due to the fact that it takes much longer to aggregate the big numbers that advertisers can achieve with a TV or radio campaign. So translating page views and unique visitors to GRPs has been resisted by some. Hitting the desired reach & frequency numbers online can be like watching a campaign unfold in slow motion.

Now, several key agencies, including Mindshare, Tremor Media and BBE are working on such translations. The agencies, and their clients, who are putting more money all the time into web video, are looking for a system that can compare the effectiveness of TV ads with online video ads using the same standards.

Newspaper Web Video Reaches the Tipping Point

Monday, April 27, 2009

Brightcove, which powers the video distribution of dozens of major daily newspapers, reports that the number of streaming videos uploaded by newspapers increased more than 14-fold in 2008. The number of videos uploaded increased dramatically every month throughout the year. Brightcove also found that video streams are growing by 35% from quarter to quarter and that total streams by customers increased by 365% in 2008.

The vast majority of these streams include ads, especially 30-second pre-roll spots. Observers in the industry say that these ads are not going to save it, as evidenced by the number of papers hemorrhaging red ink, but they are providing one of the few growth areas in the "print" industry.