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.

I ran across an Advertising Age article which — unfortunately — purports that realtors and realty agencies are making a mass exodus from newspapers and flocking to the Internet … permanently. Ugh.

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.

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.

Whenever and wherever our Google overlords speak, I get my butt in that room and listen. They seem to know way more about me than I’m comfortable with, so I’m going to learn all I can about them. After all they ARE the #1 search engine online and their YouTube product became the second largest last year. Recently, I had the opportunity to hear Google’s Marc Marinacci speak on Five Trends that Shape Digital Marketing.