Media Sales Today

Interactive is the future — according to recent Forrester Research, anyway. Forrester talked with marketers about their budgets for the years 2009 through 2014, and most — 60% — are shifting funds from traditional media to interactive. According toDirectmag.com, “Direct mail was cited by 40% of marketers as 1 being cut, outranking newspapers (35%), magazines (28%) and TV (12%).”

I wanted to finish up my recent blogs about “The Future of Advertising” project that the Advertising Research Foundation conducted and published. The following are some major findings from a group of separate studies on DVR, online and print ads. Mainly, the synopsis from most find that threats posed by DVRs and clutter to TV ads are overblown; print and online advertising are effective; and word-of-mouth about brands is largely driven by paid media ads.

McPheters & Company recently put viewers, readers and searchers to the test. Pitting TV, magazines and the Web against each other, the research company tested the effectiveness of ads viewed on these media, with surprising results. Or then again, the results might just confirm what you’ve always believed, but now can be used to pave the way to convincing your clients.

TV networks are talking tough to local broadcast affiliates these days. With local ad revenue down and still declining, the buzz around town is, “why don’t we move to cable?”

Iman News, a real estate and technology site, is reporting that Century 21 Real Estate will stop running national television spots in 2009 and shift those budget dollars to online advertising.

  Detroit’s Big Three should re-allocate ad dollars and concentrate more on consumer-centric media including radio, according to recommendations from BigResearch. BigResearch concluded that GM, Ford and Chrysler spend too much on TV. Based on what consumers say affects their car buying decision, BigResearch recommends a much bigger split of the annual ad budget go [...]

  Multichannel News recently conducted an online survey of ad sales executives to help gauge the state of local cable TV advertising and the results indicate a rough year in 2009. The executives predict a tough sales climate, with 51% estimating flat or declining revenue in 2009. Nearly all (81%) picked local or regional economic [...]