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.
MediaPost Urges Caution in Online Ad Inventory
MediaPost has found some “eyeopeners” regarding online advertising, after a survey of .5 million unique domains. Among their findings:
- About 10% of domains selling ad impressions in scale-buying environments (networks, SSPs and exchanges) are non-English language sites. There is always chaff among the wheat in scale buying (e.g., porn sites, sites with hate speech), but non-English sites topped that chaff by percentage.
- About 21% of the sites MediaPost surveyed in late 2010 no longer exist, but, are still on whitelists; media buyers are paying for exposure on non-existent venues.
- “There’s a serious quality issue out there, folks,” MediaPost’s Andrew Lerner observed, which is a challenge to brands and marketers. About 58% available in real-time bidding (RTB) and large networks are what Lerner called “sub-standard environments for advertisers,” which use sub-standard publishing or editorial principles. Thus, nearly six of 10 domains are ones an ad buyer might actually choose to avoid.
Despite those findings, MediaPost observes that the higher-quality sites are more likely to deliver click-throughs, CPA and brand metrics. And while MediaPost did not reveal the names of any of the hate speech or substandard properties, a quick check of several “White Pride” sites (including kkk.com) revealed no advertisements.
Magna: 2012 Mediaspend to Grow 4.7 Percent
IPG's Magna predicts that global media spending will hit $427 billion in 2012, up 4.7 percent from estimated 2011 mediaspend. That is a 0.5 percent decrease from the firm's previous 2012 estimates.
US media forecasts are slightly less rosy, at 3.7 percent growth to $153 billion. Interestingly, China may pop up to the second largest ad market in 2012, partly due to its own organic growth, and partly due to unexpected adspend declines in tsunami-hit Japan.
Two other ad giants published 2012 forecasts that were equally or slightly more optimistic than Magna's newest prediction. Zenith Optimedia predicts 4.7 percent growth. GroupM predicts that the Olympics will add still more momentum, driving world spend to $522 billion, a 6.4 percent increase over 2011.
Chart: North American Advertising Expenditure, All Major Media, 2009-2013
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About this chart: Source: ZenithOptimedia, "Global Ad Expenditure to Return to Pre-recession Peak Level," July 2011. ZenithOptimedia is a global media services agencies with 218 offices in 72 countries. ZenithOptimedia is part of Publicis Groupe the world’s third largest communications group, the world’s second largest media counsel and buying group, and a global leader in digital and healthcare communications. Advertising Expenditure Forecasts are published quarterly.
Analysis: People Magazine Top Choice of Radio Listeners
Radio listeners, aged 18 and older are most often reading People, Time and Sports Illustrated, according to analysis by Radio Business Report. RBR's "Magazine Scene: What Radio Consumers are Reading" compiles data from BIGresearch to find which magazine titles, including both printed and digital edition, most interested radio listeners, and then separated these by music genre.
The listings provide a good mechanism for radio stations to learn about their audience and remain in tune with its biggest fans. The analysis lists the radio program type, and any magazine that gets a 1.5% share from that audience, and with the sheer volume of different magazines out there, RBR points out that most percentages are fairly small.
Chart: Ad Spending by Media Channel, Detailed, Q1 2011
About this chart: Source: Kantar Media. Kantar Media analyzes print, radio, TV, internet, cinema, mobile, social media, and outdoor worldwide, and tracks more than 3 million brands.
Chart: Product Placement in Television Programs, by Program, Q1 2011
About this chart: Source: The Nielsen Company, June 2011. "State of the Media: Trends in Advertising Spend and Effectiveness."
Chart: Top 10 Magazine Advertisers, Q1 2011
About this chart: Source: Kantar Media. Kantar Media analyzes print, radio, TV, internet, cinema, mobile, social media, and outdoor worldwide, and tracks more than 3 million brands. The ten largest magazine advertisers invested a total of $834.5 million in the medium, up 3.4 percent. They accounted for a 17.5 percent share of all magazine ad dollars. CPG marketers claimed five of the ten spots on this list.
Chart: Shifts in Marketing Spending in 2012 Budegt
NYT Boosts Subscriptions Through Events Marketing | Amazon Kindle Tops Paper Book Sales
- Like the rest of the industry, the New York Times found that selling subscriptions by phone became less effective and much more expensive as the federal “do-not-call” registry was put in place, reports poynter.org. So, it has replaced telemarketing as a source of selling new subscriptions with “events marketing,” i.e., pitching a booth at a well-trafficked venue like the U.S. Open tennis tournament. The new sales channel has grown from a handful of local events mid-2000s to 850 events last year. About a third are in New York, and the rest national. Such events have become the second largest sales channel after the Web and that the program will expand further in 2011.
- Amazon is now selling more e-books than print or hardback combined, a marker that probably could have been hit much sooner if its digital books could be read outside the Kindle platform, writes paidcontent.org. As well, Amazon reports that its $114 ad-supported Kindle is now the best-selling of the homegrown e-readers. It took Amazon less than four years from the launch of Kindle in November 2007 to reach this point, a moment of much glee for CEO Jeff Bezos. In his statement, Bezos said: “Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly—we’ve been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years.”