Facebook, Twitter and Google may dominate the trade press and the blogosphere, but one of the most traditional media brands -- ABC -- is the most powerful in the hearts and minds of advertisers and ad agency executives, according to an annual survey of Madison Avenue’s perceptions of the media they do business with. The study, which surveyed thousands of advertisers and agency executives, is conducted by Advertiser Perceptions, which is to the ad industry what J.D. Power’s annual awards are to the automotive industry. ABC’s ranking as the most dominant “overall” media brand is a composite of all of the individual attributes that AR surveys the ad industry about, and it replaces last year’s champ, Meredith. AR only releases the identity of the top media brand in each category, so it’s not clear what happened to Meredith’s relative performance this past year -- but last year, AR partner Ken Pearl noted that Meredith “has always done well in the past.” Interestingly, Meredith also failed to rank in the top position among any other data released by AR this year, including print -- a category that Time Inc. publications nearly swept. Time Inc.’s People ranked No. 1 in “brand strength,” while its Real Simple ranked No. 1 in “customer service,” and its Sports Illustrated was tops in “advertiser satisfaction.” The only other print publisher to rank among AR’s top media brand scores was American Express’ Food & Wine, which ranked No. 1 in “customer service.” Among these individual categories, AR generally considers “brand strength” to be a telling indicator of the vitality of a media brand in the hearts and minds of ad executives, because it is a composite of attributes that ad executives use to value media, including ad results, audience and the image of a media company's brand. Not surprisingly, ABC ranked No. 1 in “brand strength” among broadcast network brands for the second year in a row. It also was top in the “sales knowledge” category. CBS was No. 1 in “customer service,” and Fox ranked first in “advertiser satisfaction.” Among cable network brands, ABC sister network ESPN ranked No. 1 for the second year in a row in “brand strength,” while Scripps’ HGTV was tops in “sales knowledge” and Food Network was No. 1 in “customer service.” MTV Networks’ Comedy Central ranked No. 1 in “advertiser satisfaction.” Among “digital” media brands, an ascendant Facebook toppled Google from the top position in “brand strength,” while Time.com was tops in “sales knowledge,” Yelp in “customer service,” and FoxNews.com in “advertiser satisfaction.”
Facing continuing revenue declines, newspaper publishers are tightening their belts again. Gannett Co.’s community publishing division is offering early retirement to 665 employees, in what could be the largest reduction in the company’s workforce in several years. The offer, announced by community publishing division president Bob Dickey, is available to Gannett employees who will be 56 years of age and have 20 years of service as of March 31, 2012. It includes a continuation of health coverage, benefits, and pay at the rate of two weeks for every year spent with the company, capped at a total of 52 weeks. While Dickey emphasized that the offer is entirely voluntary, he hinted that the company may be forced to implement more drastic cost-cutting strategies, implicitly including layoffs. Like many other big newspaper publishers, Gannett Co. has seen its workforce shrink dramatically since the middle years of the last decade. From 53,000 employees at the end of 2003, layoffs and buyouts cut the total workforce to 32,600 at the end of 2010, for a 38.5% reduction over this period. 2011 likely brought further reductions as the company seeks to offset continuing revenue declines. Gannett Co.’s total revenues have declined from $8.03 billion in 2006 to $5.24 billion in 2011. This is due mostly to a steep decline in publishing advertising revenue, from $5.37 billion to $2.51 billion over the same period.
TargetCast tcm says the path to smart TVs playing a game-changing role in TV advertising is uncertain, but the potential for data collection could help bring that into focus. For smart TVs, the ad placement falls below the live viewing window, even as social media opportunities supplementing the broadcast unfurl in real-time. TargetCast says the interactivity of the ad is trackable (with applications from DoubleClick, Atlas and MediaPlex) and can lead viewers to a Web destination, long-form VOD stream or even the chance to set a DVR for an advertised show. “The power of this ad unit is currently undefined; however, with the tracking technology and available metrics, its value will soon be discovered,” TargetCast says. The agency’s report also touches on the benefits of Hulu or YouTube video being accessible via smart TVs. It credits Hulu with taking an “impressive stance” by offering an ad model that does not charge an advertiser unless an ad is watched end-to-end. Hulu also has the ad selector that can improve targeting by allowing viewers to select an ad they want to watch. “The opportunity to deliver branded sight, sound and motion for a guaranteed 30 seconds is invaluable,” TargetCast says. A theme in the agency report is big TV screens are not going away, even as what flows into them evolves into a “one-stop shop for all types of content and communication." Also, mobile video consumption may become more central. At CES, TargetCast says “there was very little excitement around smartphones or tablets.” Consumers “want to watch content (notice how we’re not saying TV) on the largest screen with the highest definition possible, and we want it on demand,” the agency says.
The list of major newspapers erecting online paywalls is about to expand as the Chicago Tribune formulates a strategy to charge readers for access to its online content. Editor Gerould Kern revealed the plan in remarks to the Niagara Foundation first reported by Chicago Business. According to the trade magazine, Kern said the newspaper will begin "to charge in a selective way,” but didn’t provide more details, leaving the exact shape of the Tribune pay wall a matter of speculation. No date was set for the pay wall, either. While details are lacking, the “selective” element could mean Tribune's paid access plan will resemble the online paywall established by The New York Times, where heavy users are asked to pay for access after reading 20 articles for free, while lighter users still get free access. Another metro daily owned by the Tribune Co., The Baltimore Sun, began charging for online access using a model similar to the NYT paywall (with free access to 15 articles) in October of last year. In December, another Chicago newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, announced that it would begin charging readers for online content with a “metered” paywall.Visitors can view up to 20 articles per month for free, after which they are asked to pay $6.99 for a monthly online subscriptions, or $77.87 for an annual online subscription. Readers who already subscribe to Chicago Sun-Times' print version get access to online content for a reduced monthly charge of $1.99. Not long after the pay wall news, the Sun-Times and a number of other daily and weekly newspapers serving the Chicago area were acquired by Wrapports LLC. Squeezed by declining ad and circulation revenues, other metro dailies are also introducing pay walls. In October, The Boston Globe unveiled a new system requiring readers to pay $3.99 per week for access; as with most (but not all) other online pay walls, home delivery subscribers do not have to pay extra for Web content.
Sonos, the maker of wireless music systems, has selected Initiative, a unit of IPG Mediabrands, to handle media chores after a review, the client and agency confirmed Friday. The client’s annual spending on ads is estimated at $20 million. The new appointment places responsibility for all media planning, buying and digital marketing efforts with Initiative. The account will be managed out of the agency’s Los Angeles office and will be overseen by John Nuzzi, executive vice president, managing director-West Coast and head of Initiative’s entertainment unit. The incumbent on the business was the independent media shop Crossmedia, which stated that it declined to participate in the review. The award comes as the 10-year-old client has boosted efforts to enable its systems to stream music, radio, podcasts and other audio services from around the world. Last year, it cut a deal with Spotify that enables access to the digital music service in the U.S. via Sonos systems. The two firms earlier struck an accord that gave European users of Sonos systems access to the Spotify service. The client has deals with numerous other audio content providers, including Aupeo, Pandora, Rhapsody, Wolfgang’s Vault, National Public Radio, and CNN, among many others. The Sonos systems also enable remote control capability from Android smartphone devices, as well as from Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Sonos is a privately held company with venture capital backing. In addition to its Santa Barbara headquarters, it has offices in Cambridge, Mass., Hilversum, Netherlands, Shenzen, China, and Penang, Malaysia. For Initiative, the Sonos award is the shop’s second confirmed new business win in the U.S. this year. In January, the agency won media planning, buying and digital marketing duties for movie distributor Roadside Attractions. Estimated annual ad spending by Roadside falls in the $15 million to $20 million range. Earlier this week, Initiative was named the lead media shop for consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser in Germany -- an assignment covering an estimated $230 million in ad spending on Reckitt products in that country.
While shopper marketing is gaining traction as a discipline among marketers, a new study from business consultant Booz & Company indicates that many consumer goods companies are struggling to use the practice to maximum advantage. Part of the problem, Booz concludes, is a lack of effective communication between manufacturers and retailers and a failure to align strategies in the space. Shopper marketing encompasses a wide variety of different capabilities and consumer touchpoints, including shopper research and insights, store design, customer relationship management, in-store communications, packaging and e-commerce. As client demand has grown, agencies are paying more attention to retail and shopper marketing disciplines. A recent study by the Grocery Manufacturers Association estimates that shopper marketing across the retail sector is now a $50 billion to $60 billion category, up from an estimated $35 billion in 2009. But the Booz study suggests that many companies, particularly in the consumer package goods sector, are struggling to get their shopper marketing strategies on the right track. According to Booz, problems occur because manufacturers and retailers disagree on strategy. ROI measurement is also an issue as is the budgeting process. More than 85% of the 50 packaged goods companies surveyed by Booz in November and December 2011 agreed that retailers focus too much on shopper discounting, even for programs that are intended to provide additional value beyond pricing. The big challenge, concluded Booz, is for manufacturers to “better engage retail partners in the development and execution of shopper solutions that deliver added value beyond price reductions.” Those that are successful, Booz said, “will earn the right to win their categories.” ROI measurement results are often inconsistent, the survey found. Most of the respondents indicated that they measure brand sales lift half the time or less from such programs, while share gain results and brand health impact were measured even less. According to the survey, shopper marketing budgets are often a matter of “beg, borrow or steal” versus having a standard line item on the balance sheet for such activities. Even 50% of the so-called “leaders” in the field acknowledge that “tin cupping,” to obtain funding from brands in the portfolio or business units during the year rather than from a dedicated budget, represents a significant source of funding for shopper marketing programs. And more than one-third of the companies Booz surveyed had no dedicated shopper marketing budget at all. Manufacturers, concluded Booz, must “develop new funding and planning processes” for their shopper marketing efforts. Pre-set budgets, the study asserted, result in “better decision making, greater lead time and superior execution.”
For several years, industry analysts have suggested that marketers eschewing ads in HD are missing an opportunity, since more programming is carried in the format. The gap between the amount of HD programming and HD advertising may be closing, but the cost is high: Per new research that employes set-top box data, it is negatively taking some $8 billion in ad value out of the market. An estimated 74% of U.S. homes watched HDTV last year, but only 16% of ads ran in HD. That is up from 61% of homes and 8% of ads in 2010, according to Kantar and Digital Generation. With millions watching shows such as “NCIS” and “Modern Family,” the researchers said this effectively means loads of viewers “enjoyed visually compelling, clear, crisp, bright television … only to have that high-quality experience interrupted with advertising, which, no matter how potentially persuasive the content, lacked the captivating visual acuity and excitement high-definition provides.” Researchers probed whether HD ads keep viewer attention longer than ads running in standard definition. It found that SD spots brought so much tuneaway -- channel switching, etc. -- that $8.2 billion worth of ad spending may be lost due to a lack of HD spots. “The benefit of airing a commercial in high-definition is that it yields substantial audience lifts, which translates into billions of dollars in potential commercial value,” Kantar and Digital Generation wrote. The STB data culled from DirecTV homes Kantar collects was used in the research with DG, providing access to second-by-second data from 100,000 DirecTV homes. The research looked at behavior during 2.4 million national commercials in March 2011. The research found HD spots brought 18% higher audience retrention than SD ads overall. Broken down, viewing retention was 28% higher when an HD ad aired in the first pod position. It was also higher across multiple ad categories from 9% higher for autos to 33% for beverages and quick-service restaurants. The same applied across dayparts with retention higher for HD versus SD ads by 20% in the daytime 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. block and by 12% in prime time.
Top original Super Bowl TV commercials saw an 113% average return of their media investment because of additional online video viewership. Within the first three days, the top ten Super Bowl commercials generated an average of $862,000 in earned video impressions, according to media research company Kantar Video. The top ten spots grabbed a total of $8.6 million in additional value, with a total online video viewership of 95.1 million. The average of $862,000 in earned video impression would be 25% of the cost of the traditional TV Super Bowl commercial on NBC this past Sunday. That price tag was pegged at a average of $3.5 million. (Kantar says its online earned video value is based on equalized CPMs and duration of online video unit.) All Super Bowl spots pulled in a collective $11.1 million in additional earned media value -- nearly a threefold increase of 256% over last year's Super Bowl on CBS. Collectively, the Super Bowl spots pulled more than $2 million worth of earned viewership before the game started. Two spots grabbed north of $2 million apiece -- a commercial for the Honda CR-V starring Matthew Broderick ($2.24 million) and Acura TRX (2.18 million). The Honda spot pulled in 14.8 million views; the Acura commercial scored 18.5 million. Kantar believes longer formats of commercials online -- one minute to one-and-a-half minutes, for example -- helped push more viewers to watch online. It also says that pre-game marketing of these commercials improved value. Super Bowl celebrities were featured in many TV commercials. But Kantar says "a strong execution around an idea that is central to a brand drives engagement and may serve as a more sustainable concept as campaigns continue throughout the year."
The "American Idol" watch continues -- somewhat predictably -- with still-decent numbers and a neck-and-neck battle with CBS' "Big Bang Theory." While the longtime Fox show is still down some 25% in viewership versus a year ago, its week-to-week numbers have stabilized. For its Thursday results shows -- typically producing lower numbers than its Wednesday performance shows -- the hour-long "Idol" at 8 p.m. actually improved two-tenths of one rating point from the week before to a Nielsen preliminary 5.7 rating/16 share among 18-49 viewers and 17.9 million overall viewers. For its account, CBS' "Big Bang Theory" continues to keep pace -- with a 5.5/16 and 16 million viewers. But during the common half-hour where "Bang" and "Idol" airs, "Bang" rung up another victory over "Idol" with a 5.5 rating to 5.2 rating. For Thursday night overall, Fox posted a 4.0/11; CBS, 3.6/10; ABC, a 2.6/7; NBC, 1.7/5; Univision, 1.4/4; and the CW, a 1.0/3. After "Idol," Fox new midseason show "The Firm" seems to be settling into the low 2 rating mark -- a decent effort this time around with a 2.3/6 and 6.3 million viewers. It was down a bit from last week's outing. After "Bang" at 8 p.m., CBS was consistent for the remainder of the night. "Rob" was up a bit to a 3.4/9 in 18-49; "Person Of Interest" equalled its series high with a 3.3/8, and "The Mentalist" remained at a 2.9/8. ABC got its best results from "Grey's Anatomy" at 9 p.m. with a 3.9/10, up three-tenths from the week before, and winning the 9 p.m. hour. "Private Practice" held steady at a 2.3/6. NBC went into rerun mode -- except for "The Office." The veteran 9 p.m. sitcom was at a 2.5/6, its lowest numbers in seven years. At 10 p.m., NBC went with a repeat of an earlier week's episode of "The Voice," hitting a 1.5/4. Both CW shows had gains among its targeted young women audience. "Vampire Diaries" was up 21% among its key women 18-34 viewers to a 1.7 rating/5 share. "The Secret Circle" rose 25% in women 18-34 to a 1.0/3.