Media Sales Today

Ahhhh. One of my favorite times of the year. Back to school. Notebooks in every color, pens just waiting to let the ink run wild on a legal pad, new backpacks for throwing around. I will admit it: I am a total nerd for school supplies. I like to walk into Staples or Office Max or Target this time of year just to admire the neatly stacked binders, the endless rows of packaged pencils, calculators, paper clips — oh my! Just the SMELL of all things new and plastic takes me back to that butterflies-in-the-belly feeling of a new school year, new teachers, new subjects, new friends, new crushes approaching.

Some marketing myth-busting found in ARF’s batch of studies that you can use to close those clients stuck in the dark ages.

Will it tell us what we all want to know? Is it what we’re all dreading? Should we all pack up our desks and look for new careers? Shake this Magic 8 Ball of a survey and your future looks bright!

With multiple studies and surveys covering various countries and thousands of respondents, the project that the Advertising Research Foundation commissioned in December should be your Advertising Bible for the next decade. In collaboration with the Wharton School, “The Future of Advertising Project” produced 21 papers that will be published later this month in the Journal of Advertising.

Brandon Evans recently blogged about how Millennials make buying decisions. Because he’s considered an expert on this age group, I thought you might be interested in his thoughts on how to sell your clients on targeting these media-savvy youth. Evans breaks it down to five key characteristics, but I feel his No. 5 should be your No. 1.

Bad news first: Direct mail spending dropped 3% in 2008. That equates to $56.7 billion. It’s the first recorded drop in 60 years for the U.S.

Good news now: Mass mailings are a thing of the past. Smaller, targeted direct mail campaigns are a thing of the future. Marketers still want to use direct mail, just in a more effective way.

This just in: Social networkers are savvy shoppers and searchers. But we already knew that, right? With 43% of the online community using social networking sites, it’s obvious that marketers should take advantage of this far-reaching advertising medium. What’s not so obvious, is how to reach these calculating, discerning, lightning-fast multi-taskers on the Web. Hit them over the head with a giant, flashing display ad?

Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving day and official start to the holiday shopping season, got its name (in part) by its ability to turn retailer balance sheets from red to black. The stakes have rarely been higher than on this Black Friday, as sales performance this weekend could mean life or death for some retail advertisers of all sizes. CNNMoney is reporting that while Big Box stores are drawing huge crowds with massive discount sales…