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Marketers Throw More Ad Dollars to Buzz Marketing, New Media

Yet another study points to the plans of advertisers to reduce spending on traditional advertising to allocate more to new media and alternative strategies such as buzz marketing, according to Mediapost. The most recent study, Marketing 2006: 2006’s Timid Start, will be released by Blackfriars Communications on March 1, and predicts an almost 10 percent drop in the portion of marketing budgets allocated to traditional advertising as compared to 2005, with most of the shift going to new media and new strategies such as word of mouth, buzz marketing, and viral marketing.

Blackfriars predicts a 13 percent increase in overall marketing spending in 2006. Non-traditional approaches can expect to see further increases in their share of overall marketing budgets in coming years.

This marks the first year that non-traditional approaches have been tracked in the Blackfriars annual analysis and forecast. Blackfriars principal Carl Howe pointed out that those interviewed for the report were not marketing executives but business executives of “all flavors. Thesee are owners, directors, and senior VPs.” In other words, they’re decision-makers rather than marketing executives who have an incentive “to put their own spin on budget numbers.”