About half-way through. This book is funny, smart and scary/exciting. I’ll post some excerpts tomorrow. If you’re counting on media and advertising (as we now know them) to be around in five years, do NOT read this book. (Amazon)
Tag Archives: advertising
Newspaper ads: Bought or sold?
I don’t think I’ve ever met a newspaper advertising salesperson. Given that (until recently?) newspapers are jammed with ads, doesn’t that seem odd? During my Radio Years, I wrote countless commericals and it was common to start from an ad torn from the local newspaper.
My sense back then was that businesses “bought” newspaper ads rather than having to be “sold.” A grocery store HAD to have the weekly specials in the local paper.
I suspect far more time an effort went into the layout of the ad than the selling.
If we have any current or former newspaper sales people reading this, leave us a comment. I’d love to know more about the sales process and how it has changed or is changing.
Why they’ve started putting soap in boxes
I’ve recently noticed most popular brands of bar soap are sold in boxes, instead of just the paper wrapper. You don’t have to be a genius to figure this out. It makes it a little less obvious –in the store– to see that they’re giving you less soap for the same prices.
The bar on the top is Dial (4.0 oz). The bar on the bottom is Ivory (4.5 oz). It appears to my untrained eye that they’ve shaved more than half an ounce but Ivory is probably less dense (it floats!).
One of the marketing shills would undoubtedly try to convince me the big dip and rounded corners make it easier to hold some horse shit.
It is my sincere hope –long shot, I know– than in a couple of months I can search Dial Soap and find this post on the first page of Google results.
Obits on TV
We’ve been fiddling around with the Internet for about 15 years and tried lots of different ideas. Streaming audio of debate from the state legislature; oral arguments from the state supreme court; online database of accident reports format he state highway patrol; and –as the say– the list goes on. One idea could never get off the ground was Obits Online. This was back in the late ’90’s as I recall.
Funeral homes would log in to our online database and post funeral announcements. The public could search by name, date, city, etc etc. We pitched the funeral home associations in Missouri and Iowa (maybe some other states, I don’t recall).
The idea never got off the ground because most funeral homes were still trying to figure out their fax machines and were convinced the people in their communities were not using computers and were unlikely to do so any time soon.
I bring up this stillborn digital baby after spotting this story (AdAge.com) about a TV station in Michigan that’s running on-air and online obituary ads after three of the region’s four daily newspapers reduced publication to three days a week.
“For $100, the station will run the deceased’s name and photo on-air and publish a full-length obituary on ObitMichigan.com. Full-screen graphics listing names of people who have passed away are broadcast during the local station’s morning and noon shows Monday through Friday, as well as on weekend morning shows. Viewers are pushed to the website for more information about the deceased as well as funeral-services information.
The station’s owner, Meredith Corp., expects to roll the concept out to its other stations and says it is also in licensing discussions with other station groups.
At $100 an obituary, it’s not clear that WNEM or Meredith has really tapped a massive vein of cash. Revenue from obituaries “is a teeny subset” of overall newspaper-classified revenue, said Mort Goldstrom, VP-advertising at the Newspaper Association of America. Fees charged by papers can range from as high as $1,000 for a major metro to a few hundred dollars for a midmarket paper. And many small community and weekly newspapers still run obituaries for free.
WNEM started running obituaries in August at no charge, to get people familiar with the service and to work out any software bugs. Since launching as a paid service in early September, executives said, the station has over 700 obituaries in its system.
The new obituaries are also prompting a change in the way people go about their daily routine, he said. “The biggest issue that we have is the elderly people that don’t have the ability to pay for internet access or don’t have a computer. Now they see it flash on TV and those that don’t have a computer can call the funeral home and ask for information,” Mr. Luczak said.”
Having the TV station to promote and leverage the idea is an important component. I hope they make some money and provide a useful service.
“Mass Roots Marketing”
Interesting post at AdAge.com on hyperlocal media and how one big media company –in this case NBC– is attempting to play “at the intersection of advertising, marketing and programming, potentially creating new kinds of content in the burgeoning local arena.”
“We’ll explore what the best solutions are to connect across all platforms. Maybe it’s finding a great blogger who lives in that community who becomes an on-air personality. It’s creating things for people to feel more connected to their community.”
“Local media is going to be the intersection of utility and entertainment and everyday life. As things are globalizing, local becomes even more vital. You have the same brands, the same food, etc., wherever you go now. Local is what makes things different; it gets to what people love about their neighborhood, why they decided to live there.”
“You start with an event or something that happens in a small community in one locale and you’re looking at it to amplify out from that. NBC Local is well-placed to help big marketers to put those new kinds of programs in place. You’ll still have people buying local 30-second spots, but more and more also putting together programs that make an impact on a very local level and have that radiate out in significant ways.”
Uh, isn’t this what local broadcasters and newspapers are doing? Or should be doing? Or used to do? Are the Big Guys planning on doing “local” better than local media?
Stay tuned.