Some $3.2 billion in political advertising is estimated to hit TV networks, stations and other platforms for the 2012 general election window -- with the weight of these commercials creating more than their usual upset: Price hikes in TV commercials. Philadelphia-based media-buying agency Harmelin Media expects TV commercial increases of between 7% and 15% in key election periods for non-political marketers -- especially for the spot TV market in the 45- to 60-day window before a primary or general election. Within the general election window -- Sept. 7 through Nov. 6, 2012 -- it says rates are estimated to rise on average by 10%, due to political advertising. Early-morning and early-fringe dayparts -- those near news programming -- will have the greatest impact on rates: a projected 16% rise. It says early news, prime access and late news dayparts could see rates rise 9%. It also warns there will be heavier-than-usual preemptions of existing schedules. (Political advertisers get the lowest unit rate and the ability to have the commercials inserted in place of non-political advertisers). There will also be overall viewer fatigue from the onslaught of political ads that will impact all TV advertising effectiveness during these periods. Harmelin says, by way of Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis, that the overall $3.2 billion in expected TV political advertising will represent a 52% increase in TV dollars versus the last presidential campaign season in 2008. Plus, political candidates -- especially presidential candidates -- will be spending more. President Obama is expected to have a record media budget of $1 billion, given new rules that allow more money from corporations and unions. The company says political advertising will total more than 50% of all spot TV expenditures in the final weeks of an election cycle. Over 80% of all TV political advertising is focused on local spot TV buys. Not surprisingly the agency warns marketers to avoid news programming that is typically highly sought after by political candidates. But it warns that all dayparts can be affected. "Even during daytime, political spending has impact, with political ads representing 22% of all spots run within the daypart," the agency says in a report. To get around some of these obstacles, it says to buy early and somewhat higher (non-preemptable schedules) to lock in specific inventory. Where broadcast is not an option, is says local cable TV has greater available inventory volume for advertisers. It also warns that there will be heavier-than-usual preemptions of existing schedules. (Political advertisers get the lowest unit rate and the ability to have the commercials inserted in place of non-political advertisers). There will also be overall viewer fatigue from the onslaught of political ads affecting all TV advertising effectiveness during these periods. Harmelin says, by way of Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis, that the overall 3.2 billion in expected TV political advertising will represent a 52% increase in TV dollars versus the last presidential campaign season in 2008. In addition, political candidates -- especially presidential candidates -- will be spending more (President Obama is expected to have a record media budget of $1 billion) as a result of new rules allowing more money from corporations and unions. Political advertising will total over 50% of all spot TV expenditures in the final weeks of an election cycle, Harmelin says. Over 80% of all TV political advertising is focused on local spot TV buys. The agency alerts marketers that all dayparts can be affected. "Even during daytime, political spending has impact, with political ads representing 22% of all spots run within the daypart," the agency says in a report. To get around any obstacles, it says to buy early and somewhat higher (non-preemptable schedules) to lock in specific inventory. Where broadcast is not an option, is says local cable TV has greater available inventory volume for advertisers. Digital is also an option: "The large amount of inventory, ability to geo-target and double-digit growth of digital video consumption make this an alternative worth researching." It is expected that digital could be about 15% of total political spending in 2012.
Publicis Groupe’s Starcom MediaVest Groupe is teaming with ShareThis, a tech company that enables the sharing of Web pages, to develop and test a new planning and buying metric for assessing the value of shared content online. The new measurement will provide a more precise way to assess how engaged people are with Web content and to what extent they value it, said Kate Sirkin, global research director, Starcom MediaVest Group. “If they’re sharing, you know they care about it, and that they believe it would be useful to somebody,” she said. Buyers are often willing to pay a premium for ads in content that consumers prefer. This metric will help agencies and their clients determine what that premium should be, Sirkin added. On the Web, shared content is becoming increasingly critical to marketers’ plans. Earlier research from SMG and ShareThis indicates that shared content now constitutes 10% of all Internet traffic. The new metric would measure what the companies describe as a “raw social traffic score” by tallying both the number of times readers share content from sites and the number of times those “shares” are clicked on by the recipients. That data will be compared to page views. “The resulting figure can then be benchmarked against the broader measure of social quality spanning the more than 1 million sites and more than 10 billion monthly sharing signals that make up the ShareThis network,” the companies stated. “It’s a really valuable thing from our side.” Sirkin said. For campaigns designed to get consumers to share content as a marketing goal, she added, “we can plan and direct publishers against that and then measure it at the end.” Also measureable will be the impact of shared links designed to spur e-commerce, download coupons or even watch a video, Sirkin said. ShareThis and SMG are currently beta testing the new measurement technique which will roll out broadly next year, first in the U.S. and later internationally. “We’ll be able to measure just about every publisher against every category,” said Sirkin. She said it would be the first time that such measurements become a full-fledged planning and buying metric, as opposed to earlier efforts that measured, on a much smaller scale, single campaigns. Kurt Abrahamson, CEO of ShareThis, said the metric would allow clients to “buy high social quality pages and Web sites, instead of targeting by audience or demographic. Pages that are shared are pages that are engaged with and users tend to spend more time,” with such content, he said. Abrahamson also said people tend to share pages with those they know. "We believe that this measurement will allow advertisers to ultimately reach higher engaged audiences than using traditional demographic type of targets.”
When it comes to word-of-mouth recommendations for brands, it appears that good, old-fashioned in-person and on-the-phone conversations still rule the day -- at least according to research conducted by Tremor and the Keller Fay Group. Tremor, the Procter & Gamble marketing unit that focuses on the so-called "influencer" segment of the consumer base, and word-of-mouth agency Keller Fay unveiled research this week that shows that over 90% of conversations about brands occur in person or on the phone. The results were first disclosed in an article penned by Tremor CEO Chris Laird for Forbes that posted on the publication’s Web site Nov. 15. Laird and Brad Fay elaborated on the study’s findings at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association's Conference in Las Vegas the following day. In the Forbes article, Laird reported that Keller Fay recruited 32,000 participants to keep daily diaries about the conversations they had about brands over of a 12-month period. During that time those respondents had 10 times as many offline conversations about brands as online chats. Another key finding from the research was that 60% of the participants reported a “high likelihood” to make a purchase based on a face-to-face conversation. The results also showed that 67% of offline conversations are mostly positive. Laird wrote that the results showed the importance of having a “balanced” approach to word-of-mouth marketing, despite all the attention and focus on digital media and tactics. "There is no ‘mouth’ involved when you post or tweet. Digital is important but not sufficient, and brands must strive for that well-rounded plan," Laird wrote, where digital is used to “drive real world conversations and vice versa.” The marketer's task would probably be easier if brands were discussed more often online than off, just given the online tracking and response capabilities that the industry has today, Laird suggested. “It’s hard work to systemically drive offline conversations about your brand,” Laird wrote in the Forbes piece. “It’s funny that the term “word-of-mouth” can sound quaint and old-fashioned as today’s perception is that consumer engagement happens more digitally than at the water cooler.”
Regis Philbin's last day on ABC's "Live with Regis & Kelly" daytime syndicated show will create a hefty advertising windfall. Thirty-second commercials in Philbin's final episode on Nov. 18 have been sold for $250,000, most of which was bought by advertisers during the upfront market in June, per media buying executives. The "Live" finale would be a healthy increase from the show's regular-season 30-second commercials in the Disney-ABC Domestic Television show, which media executives say was in the $25,000 to $35,000-a-unit range. Representatives from Disney-ABC Television had no comment. The sale of the inventory came in the midst of a strong market for many TV platforms -- broadcast and cable networks and TV syndication. Media sellers witnessed high double-digit percentage increases on CPMs, anywhere from 12% to 17% and more. This would not be a record for a single episode of syndication talk show. That went to "Oprah Winfrey" last September at around $1 million for a 30-second spot. In her heyday, Winfrey could grab some $100,000 or more for that unit during regular-season episodes. At the end of her talk show run, Winfrey was getting around $50,000 to $60,000 for a 30-second ad. The highest prices for a 30-second commercial unit for talk shows currently in syndication are being registered by CBS Distribution Television's "Dr. Phil," Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution's "Ellen" and Disney-ABC Television's "Live with Regis & Kelly" -- anywhere around $25,000 to $35,000. A number of guest hosts are slated to co-host with Kelly Ripa over the next couple of weeks -- including Jerry Seinfeld and Neil Patrick Harris.
While there has been a great deal of interest in the rise of digital magazines, there has been less information about the exact size of digital magazine audiences -- until recently. Now research outfits, such as GfK MRI and Affinity, are including magazine consumption on computers, tablets, e-readers, and other devices in their magazine audience estimates. The latest data comes from GfK MRI, which on Thursday released the results of its first magazine audience survey to measure print and digital audiences. The data indicates that digital magazines have made impressive headway in terms of consumer adoption. More than one out of 10 magazine exposures took place solely on digital platforms, with no print component at all. In the measurement period from March-October 2011, the total gross magazine audience -- defined by GfK MRI as the number of consumer exposures to magazine-branded content on any platform, including magazines printed on paper -- was approximately 1.58 billion. Within this figure, 1.278 billion exposures were print-only, involving no digital component; 135 million involved both print and digital components; and 166 million, or 11% of the total, involved only digital components. Digital-only magazine readers skew younger, better-educated and more affluent than the general population. GfK MRI found that 36% of digital-only readers have an annual household income over $100,000, over-indexing at 143 on a scale of 100 for this measure. 42% had a bachelor’s degree or higher, over-indexing at 151 on a scale of 100. In terms of age, 54% were “millennials," over-indexing at 178, and 24% were Gen-Xers, over-indexing at 110. Just 20% were boomers, under-indexing at 61 out of 100. The digital-only magazine-reading audience also showed a skewed gender ratio, with males making up 63% and females 37% of the total.
One of the nation’s larger metropolitan daily newspapers is changing hands, with Thursday’s announcement that The San Diego Union-Tribune has been sold by Platinum Equity to MLIM, LLC, a company owned by San Diego real estate developer Doug Manchester, for an undisclosed sum. Although there is no word on business or editorial staff changes as yet, the Union-Tribune reports that Manchester, who owns high-profile hotel and commercial properties around San Diego, has hired media executive John Lynch to serve as president and CEO of MLIM. Lynch previously founded the Broadcast Company of America and made a name for himself outside the newspaper business as an owner of radio stations. According to the Union-Tribune, since purchasing the newspaper from Copley Press in May 2009, Platinum Equity has presided over growing circulation, advertising revenue and an array of new digital and print products. Many of these initiatives were spearheaded by new management brought in by Platinum, including president and publisher Ed Moss and editor Jeff Light. Among the new initiatives, in August 2009 the paper launched a new ad program offering micro-zoning for small business clients at lower local rates. The paper also mounted an editorial effort to drive more local news coverage to targeted communities in San Diego. In April 2010, the Union-Tribune launched a Daily Deal program, and in August of last year, it completed a total redesign of the newspaper and its online property signonsandiego.com. In April 2011 the company acquired the online lifestyle property DiscoverSD.com to expand its reach with a younger demographic. This month, it launched Vida Latina San Diego, a Spanish-language entertainment magazine.
Glamour Scores Social Engagement With SnapTagsGlamour’s September “Friends and Fans’ issue drove substantial social media activity for the magazine and its advertisers through the inclusion of SpyderLynk’s “Social SnapTags." The September issue of the magazine featured Social SnapTags throughout its editorial and advertising pages, encouraging consumers to join brands’ social networks. Reader engagement for this successful campaign totaled 512,339, and readers “liked” Glamour’s advertisers 50,814 times. Conversion rates for several key metrics were also higher than traditional advertising alone. For example, among readers who snapped or scanned the Social SnapTag, 67% liked the magazine or brand in order to access deals, and 18% shared those deals with friends. Advertisers in Glamour’s September issue also ran SnapTag campaigns integrated with sweepstakes, as well as promotional discounts, coupons and free samples. Here, sweepstakes and sample offers provided the highest conversion rates, at 85%, while discounts and other promotional offers followed with a 71% conversion rate. Looking to the future, Jenny Bowman, Glamour’s executive creative services director, stated: “We’ll use Social SnapTags again in our March issue, but this time, [we added] a whole new mobile shopping feature so readers can instantly shop the pages of Glamour.” Chelstowski Leaves Newsweek/Daily Beast Ray Chelstowski -- the first publisher of Newsweek/Daily Beast following the merger of the two media companies last year -- has resigned, according to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Chelstowski will be replaced by Eric Danetz, who previously served as vice president of sales for CBS Interactive. Also leaving the company are Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal and Managing Editor Tom Weber. MacKenzie To Chief Content Officer, Source Interlink Angus MacKenzie has been named chief content officer for Source Interlink Media, where he will be responsible for developing editorial, entertainment and advertising content strategies across all SIM brands. He will also lead SIM’s new automotive video group in developing programs for YouTube. MacKenzie, who was editor in chief of Motor Trend magazine, is already overseeing development of a new Google TV app that will provide automotive content for Google’s new Web-based TV service. This video-on-demand platform, developed with SIM’s in-house emerging media agency Mediaworks, in collaboration with Google, focuses on automotive news, new car reviews and road tests. MacKenzie stated: “SIM is evolving from a traditional magazine publishing company to one which creates content that connects with audiences across a variety of platforms." SIM’s Mediaworks division is also working on developing content-rich apps for Hot Rod, Truck Trend Magazine, JP, SAIL and Surfer, as well as mobile utility apps for both its brands and SIM ad clients. Also at SIM, Edward Loh was promoted to editor-in-chief of Motor Trend, which counts a print circ of more that 1 million a month and a site that attracts more than 4 million unique visitors monthly. USPS Posts $5.1 Billion Loss in 2011 The U.S. Postal Service announced year-end results for fiscal 2011, which wrapped up at the end of September, revealing a $5.1 billion loss for the year. This loss comes as no surprise, following months of high-profile hearings and congressional debates about how to save the nation’s struggling mail service. The USPS loss would have been even higher -- $10.6 billion -- if it hadn’t received a one-time waiver allowing it to put off a $5.5 billion payment into its retiree health benefits that was due earlier this year. The $5.1 billion loss follows consecutive, mounting losses of $2.8 billion in 2008, $3.8 billion in 2009, and $8.5 billion in 2010. Potential fiscal fixes being debated include cutting health and pension benefits for USPS workers, layoffs, closing mail distribution centers and local post offices, and ending Saturday mail delivery.
The list of carmakers striking deals with Pandora just got longer with the addition of Honda, which announced its partnership with the online audio platform. The first Honda vehicle to incorporate Pandora Internet radio as a standard feature is the 2012 CR-V, the latest model of Honda’s popular compact SUV, which will be available at dealerships across the U.S. beginning Dec. 15. The CR-V integration offers key Pandora features that help personalize the user’s stations, including thumbs-up, thumbs-down and track skipping. As with other in-vehicle integrations, Pandora access requires a smartphone, which connects with the vehicle’s onboard computer system. The announcement of the Honda partnership brings the total number of carmakers offering Pandora via a smartphone connection to onboard systems to 14. Among others, Pandora has partnerships with Ford, Toyota, Mercedes and Hyundai, as well as radio manufacturers Alpine and Pioneer, whose aftermarket products allow drivers to access Pandora from car dashboards. While onboard computers with digital media capabilities are popular new features, their introduction has not always been smooth sailing for carmakers. Earlier this month, Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally promised “revised versions” of Ford’s new MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch onboard systems with fixes for a number of shortcomings. Ford’s MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch have both been criticized for cluttered, confusing interfaces and glitches including unexpected shutdowns. Ford Motor Co. is sending owners of cars with these systems installed a flash drive with a downloadable upgrade.
39 Bucks Buys a Lot of Netflix... Google Offers, the Internet search giant's daily deals site, launched in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Brooklyn, N.Y., Chicago and Houston. For its first deal in Los Angeles, Google offered two movie tickets and a large popcorn at Grauman's Chinese Theatre or Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood -- up to a $39 value -- for $14. If you see “J. Edgar,” you will still feel ripped off. Think of it as a Twitter-Based Laugh Track... A company has an application out that allows viewers of television programming to have a second screen going simultaneously, allowing them to engage in running commentary with other users about the program being watched in real-time. Explains its CEO: “Viewers can just plop down on the couch, turn on both screens, and dive into the sea of snarky comments about their favorite shows. The app allows users to watch live and time-shifted, to enjoy the entire delicious dish in sync with the episode you're watching on your TV or laptop.” Kinda like watching TV with 2.5 million people who aren't funny and who won't shut up. But January Jones Doesn't Age A Day... The next season of "Mad Men"hasn't even started yet, but the show's creator, Matthew Weiner, already has an idea of what the series finale will look like (in about five more years) saying, "I always felt like it would be the experience of human life. And human life has a destination. It doesn't mean Don's gonna die. What I'm looking for, and how I hope to end the show, is like ... It's 2011. Don Draper would be 84 right now." Meanwhile, January and Jessica will have moved on to younger client brand managers who shave occasionally, presumably cheat less and have bigger, uh, incomes. What if LeBron Falls in the Woods and No One Hears It? When the National Basketball Association put a "take it or leave it" offer on the table last week, the Players Association rejected it, disbanded the union and put its players' future in the hands of the federal court system. It appears increasingly unlikely that there will be an NBA season this year. It will be missed about as much as the NHL (an actual team sport), which likewise disappeared for a season. Quik Quiz Who the hell is/was John Zuccotti, whose namesake park they occupied, peed all over, got ejected from -- and now hang out forlornly waiting for the world to somehow change for the better? A: Chairman of Brookfield Office Properties that owns the park, and deputy mayor of New York back in the ‘70s. Just old enough to have kids hanging out forlornly waiting for the world to somehow change for the better. Origin of "Don't Bend Over for the Soap" In Bob Costas' phone interview with Jerry Sandusky -- the former Penn State assistant football coach accused of sexually abusing underage boys over a 15-year period -- Sandusky said he thought there was nothing wrong with a middle-aged man showering with underage boys. Sounds like he is setting the table for an insanity plea.