Ad buyers and planners can expect more precise circulation figures, beginning in 2012. Folio reports that media auditor BPA Worldwide has approved several new and amended rules, some aimed at better segmenting print and digital readerships. All were member-requested changes.
Old rules assigned three categories of readership, “print,” “digital” and “both,” for a total of 100%; someone who read “both” was not counted as a print or digital reader. New measures will roll “both” readers into the “print” and “digital” categories, for higher figures.
The BPA board approved “downloaded apps” by month as a measure in a BPA Brand Report, versus a standard BPA report; but the measure must include verbiage “disclosing the limitations of the figures,” says Folio. App copies cannot be reported as qualified circulation, as are downloaded issues, or email deliveries.
Also true, subscriber access to digital copies will be used as a measure of renewals in some cases, such as when 1) a weekly is accessed nine times in six months; 2) a monthly is been accessed twice in six months; and 3) a quarterly publication is accessed every six months.
Google+ Reaches Affluent, and the 18-34 Age Group
In the days following the June 28 launch of Google+ as invites became more available, visits to the site steadily increased, particularly between July 5th and July 12th. To date, Tuesday, July 12th and Thursday, July 14th were the peak days for total visits, according to analysis from Experian Hitwise.
The highest share of visits to Google+ since launch is from those between the ages of 25-34 and those between 18 and 34 were more likely than the overall online population to visit. The audience to Google+ tends to be more affluent, over-indexing for those earning a household income of $60k and over, particularly $150k and up.
For the week ending July 19, 2011, the average visit time for Google+ was five minutes and fifty seconds up from four minutes and fifty two seconds the week prior. While the average visit time has increased since launch, in comparison, users spent an average of 21 minutes and fifty seven seconds on Facebook last week.
The combination of Google and Gmail accounted for over 50% of all upstream traffic to Google+ last week, with additional referrals from other Google properties like YouTube and Google Profiles. Facebook ranked 3rd among websites visited immediately before Google+, not surprising since many social network users tend to maintain multiple accounts, especially to experiment with new social networks.
Trade Publishers Critical of New Postal Bill | Taco Bell, Indoor Direct to Outfit 5,600 Locations
Direct
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The latest bill introduced in Congress to reform the U.S. Postal Service and help it avoid insolvency has been criticized by American Business Media, an association of trade magazine publishers, as well as by the Postal Service, writes BtoB Online. The bill would allow postal rate increases for underperforming products above what is currently limited by the rate of inflation, possibly leading to increases as high as 20% over the next three years for ABM members.
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Email open rates declined to an average of 17% last year, down from 26% in 2009, according to “Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index 2009-2010.” The report, examined metrics for roughly 3 billion email messages sent by about 100 companies in nine vertical industries using the company's Postfuture email platform. The report said that delivery rates increased to 95% last year, up from 93% in 2009. Click rates were steady at 3%; unsubscribe rates dropped from 0.32% to 0.19%; and bounce rates declined from 7% to 5%.
Outdoor
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Taco Bell and Indoor Direct’s Restaurant Entertainment Network have partnered to install in-store television network and free Wi-Fi in all 5,600 Taco Bell locations in the U.S. The installation is expected to be complete in 2015 and will include a point of sale and dining room network and wifi access. It is expected to reach approximately 48 million Taco Bell customers each month, said Indoor Direct.
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LocaModa has launched Community Board 1.0, a new place-based social media application that runs on any Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) network. Community Board 1.0 looks like a traditional community board and features the ability for consumers and venues to “pin” digital messages, photos and posters to venue screens, and react with digital offers and local announcements. Two top brands have purchased media on the new application for national campaigns running during Q3 and Q4 2011 in markets including health clubs, cafes and bars. Community Board will launch on six networks: Zoom Media & Marketing’s Fitness and Social Networks, RMG Networks, Health Club Media Network, Reach Sports Marketing Group, and Panel Media & Marketing.
Direct: CEOs Want More “P&L” from Marketers | Radio: Pandora IPO
Direct
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73% of CEOs think marketers lack the P&L mentality and business credibility and are not the business-growth generators they should be, according to a 2011 global marketing effectiveness study from The Fournaise Marketing Group. Marketers are not able to demonstrate how the cross-channel marketing strategies and campaigns they deploy, in the end, build customer demand, more sales, more prospects, more conversions or more market share.
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Cablevision has rolled out a tool allows marketers to tag their TV ads with email opt-ins. The Optimum Select RFI with email fulfillment lets consumers sign up to receive emailed product information, coupons, e-brochures and other offers through a TV ad. To opt in, customers of Cablevision's iO TV service who are viewing an ad with a call-to-action can click a prompt to receive more information. The consumer's Cablevision email address is the default account, but consumers can edit the address to receive the message through another account, reports Direct Marketing News.
Radio
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Pandora Media shares soared as much as 48 percent in the online radio company's stock market debut. The company is trading at 24 times its 2010 sales, far above the value placed on Google, Amazon and Sirius XM, Reuters reports. With 90 million registered users in the United States, Pandora makes money mainly from advertising and it has to pay significant royalties for music, and its operating costs are higher than revenue.
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Radio listening and out-of-home TV viewing increased ESPN’s reach by 15.5 million persons, or 23%, over in-home TV viewing. The increase in time spent with the content was even greater, a lift of 9.1 billion minutes, or 40%, over the average in-home TV audience, according to Arbitron. ESPN worked with Arbitron in November 2010 to measure consumption of ESPN Radio affiliates and football content on ESPN TV networks, both in home and out of home.
Chart: Email Campaign Content Mix in Retail, Q1 2011
Source: Epsilon, "Q1 2011 Email Trends and Benchmarks" June 2011 About their data: The study is compiled from 7.1 billion emails sent by Epsilon in Q1 (January – March) 2011, across multiple industries and approximately 140 participating clients.
Chart: Email Campaign Content Mix, Q1 2011
Source: Epsilon, "Q1 2011 Email Trends and Benchmarks" June 2011 About their data: The study is compiled from 7.1 billion emails sent by Epsilon in Q1 (January – March) 2011, across multiple industries and approximately 140 participating clients.
NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller Steps Down | Email Conversions Strongest in Three Years
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Jill Abramson, a former Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, will become the paper’s executive editor, succeeding Bill Keller, who is stepping down to become a full-time writer for the paper. Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief, will become the managing editor for news. Keller ran the newsroom for eight years through declining revenue and cutbacks throughout the industry, but he said that with a formidable combination of Abramson and Baquet in place to succeed him, it was time to step aside, reports The New York Times.
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B2B print advertising pages declined 1% in February compared with the year-earlier period, according to Business Information Network figures released by American Business Media. B2b pages also dipped 0.3% in the first two months of the year. The strongest category in February was transportation and logistics, with ad pages growing 43.4%. Automotive followed with a 21.5% increase. Electronic engineering was the weakest category, with ad pages falling 26.5%. Aviation, aerospace and military followed with a 15.2% decline, reports B-to-B Online.
Direct
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Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council released the Q1 2011 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results which show a 4.2% increase in open rates over Q1 2010 and a 39.2% increase in average volume per client from Q1 2010. Other findings include a a decrease in click to conversion rates, down 4.7% over last quarter, but with an 26.5% increase over the same quarter last year. The 3.0% conversion rate is the strongest over a three year period, suggesting that email continues to be a strong channel for revenue.
- Google reported that a phishing scheme, which appears to have originated in China, has affected the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.
Social Media, Cause Engagement Linked For African-Americans and Hispanics
Nearly one in three African-American adults (30%) and four in ten Hispanics (39%) say they are more likely to support a cause or social issue online than offline today—both significantly higher percentages than Caucasians (24%), according to the new Dynamics of Cause Engagement study conducted in late 2010 by Georgetown University's Center for Social Impact Communication and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.
Other findings including African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to believe that they can help get the word out about a social issue or cause through online social networks (58% and 51%, respectively, vs. 34% of Caucasians). They also subscribe more readily to the belief that social networking sites like Facebook make it easier to support causes today, and that these sites help increase visibility for causes. And while half of Caucasians and Hispanics (48% and 51%, respectively) agree that they get too many emails about causes now, a significantly lower number of African Americans (33%) feel this way.
Chart: Types of Interactive Niche Marketing in Use, 2011
Chart: Types of Interactive Marketing in Use, 2010 v. 2011
