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 This post, Black Friday: Does It Save You Some Green? Or Just Make You See Red?, can be read on our new blog by clicking this link.

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 This post, It’s Called a ‘Co-op’ Because it Requires Coordinated Cooperation, can be read on our new blog by clicking this link.

With the fanfare yesterday around the Windows 7 launch, Apple took the opportunity to break a series of new ads in their “I’m a Mac” series directly attacking Windows 7.  If you missed them, here they are:

Although I feel that the “I’m a Mac” schtick is getting a bit tired, I have to admit that I like these series of ads.  It’s advertising 101 - if you’re #2 in the market, directly attack the #1 player.  The spots are smart, quick, and focus in on creating FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in the mind of the consumer considering buying a PC.  Good stuff.

That being said - it’s interesting that the local component is missing here.  Windows 7 has had a HUGE local presence, with launch parties being held locally across the country.  However, I walked into my local Mac store this morning and there was nothing about Windows 7 or any tie to this advertising campaign at all.  Where’s the continuity?

National brands NEED to embrace local - driving consistent, accurate, powerful communications through your local channels (whether resellers, distributors or franchisees) needs to be a focus of any national campaign.  Local is where demand is both driven and fulfilled and should be a key component of your strategy. 

Marketing obviously doesn’t get easier during a recession – according to the 2009 ANA/MMA Marketing Accountability Survey three-fourths of marketers had their budgets cut this year and two-thirds were expected to drive more sales with their newly lowered budget. The number one reported strategy for marketers who wanted to improve effectiveness without spending more was to switch up their marketing mix from traditional to digital.

It will be interesting to see how the average marketer’s media mix will change over the next several years (as the economy begins to improve). Over the past 16-months, marketers have noted that interactive marketing has proven to be more effective and efficient and are therefore moving their dollars from traditional media toward less expensive and more efficient interactive tools – enabling them to accomplish current advertising goals with less money.

 Also of interest, more than 50% of respondents reported that they had shifted spending away from brand-building initiatives and 38% were putting more spending in lower-cost media. While it makes sense for a brand with a solid, seemingly impenetrable image to take a step away from branding-building and focus their dollars elsewhere – neglecting to develop or deepen a brand that is relatively unknown or seemingly weak can destroy a company – especially in a down economy.

A new survey on media usage from the Opinion Research Corporation confirms what newspaper publishers have long feared: Americans are abandoning daily print newspapers in favor of online news. The OPC also found a slightly smaller decrease in the number of people turning to TV news. However, there were also some unexpected gains for traditional media, including a greater reliance on radio for news and information. The increase in online news consumption was led by disproportionately larger increases among a number of key demographics (including college-educated people (20%), Hispanics (21%) and people with  household incomes over $100,000 a year (23.1%)). As might be expected, adults ages 18-34 are now reportedly getting more of their news from online sources (22.2% increase). 

While newspaper readership is overall down and continues to fall as more people to turn to the internet, it is important to remember that are still many areas, markets and communities throughout the US where print newspaper is still a powerful medium.  In many rural areas, local newspapers are still considered to be one of the best places to advertise. While in more urban areas it may make more sense to advertise on a newspapers’ website.

Ultimately, where you should be advertising completely depends on your local market. How your current, past and potential customers consume media is all that matters when determining your optimal marketing mix. So take a look around you and note what media sources you, your spouse, children, neighbor, barber, etc. commonly turn to.

It’s a fact of life we’ve grown to accept: advertisements are everywhere.   They infiltrate our daily life and are impossible to ignore.  Some people are bothered by this supposed ‘attack’ on personal space and time, while others have learned to merely accept this relatively new reality that shows no sign of slowing.  Still others have grown to enthusiastically embrace our new world of logos, slogans, spokesmen, and paraphernalia that are stuck, said, plastered, placed, handed out, hung up and thrown in our faces just about everywhere. 

Clearly, this expansion of advertising has gained significant speed due to its pairing with the Internet’s ever-improving capacity to track consumer habits and preferences. This ability has given marketers previously un-dreamt of opportunities to reach their target audience.  The liberation of audio, visual and textual communication through online conduits has also opened the floodgates for advertisers to reach a captured audience with precision and speed.

Depending on the day, I find myself in one of the aforementioned buckets of reactions to advertising.  More and more; however, I am shocked to realize I’m actually a proud member of the latter group – that growing body of people who gladly grab a brand’s sticker for their water bottle, publicly befriend a company on Facebook, or follow their favorite stores on Twitter. 

This revelation about myself as a welcoming consumer of advertising finally hit me in its entirety the other day when my friend introduced me to the new wave of ‘free’ international communication offered by Talkster.  Talkster is a service that allows you to use local cell phone minutes to make international calls.  The connection is crystal clear, the convenience is great, and the price is unbeatable!  How is this possible? Easy – you only have to listen to a 10-second advertisement before your call is connected.  That’s it?  REALLY?  Well then, bring it on!  I’d gladly listen to even 30 seconds of ads in order to have the flexibility of talking to my friend in Hong Kong on my cell phone for free.

Pandora radio is another great example of a service whose advertisements I willingly accept.  Pandora allows me to customize my own radio stations online with only the minor disturbance of a short ad every once in a while.  I’ve even noticed the themes of the ads seem to fit nicely with the genre of my streaming music.  Also, we should not overlook another favorite example of mine that is often taken for granted:  major subscription-based newspapers and magazines typically make their featured articles available online for a limited time.  This free information is provided thanks to the bordering banner ads subsidizing what would otherwise be money from my own pocket paying for a subscription.  This teaming of online sponsors and service providers has proven extremely beneficial to all parties involved.

So again, I admit I am a sucker for free stuff (who isn’t?) and I don’t mind the advertisements that allow me to use free stuff.  To the delight of advertisers, I am more receptive to their messages when I can consciously recognize the benefits they provide.  In addition, as ads become more relevant to my preferences, I find myself reading them, listening to them, and interacting with them more frequently. 

I applaud the businesses willing to think outside the box and explore non-traditional advertising.  Kudos, as well, to the entrepreneurs who make these marketing opportunities available and are always looking for new ways to help vendors reach consumers.  If we could all learn to embrace this symbiotic relationship (and perhaps even capitalize on a trend that is only going to grow) we will become more effective vendors, advertisers, and consumers alike. 

Okay, I admit, I’m a media planner. Now, before you look at the title and the prior sentence and accuse me of being some kind of media-driven politician, rolling into town, gun-blazing, shooting phrases like ‘Gross Rating Points’, ‘aperture’, and ‘Daily Unique Visitors’, hear me out. I’m not trying to sell you anything, but rather open your eyes to a very attractive value-proposition.

As a media planner, it’s my job to create media plans. In a nutshell, these plans traditionally take a business’s marketing budget and develop a strategy for the coming year that includes what mediums will be used to advertise (e.g. cable television, newspapers) and when (e.g. peak sales months, all year) they’ll be used in order to successfully keep the advertiser’s name top-of-mind with the consumers they so crucially rely on for business. Believe me; this can be very valuable for businesses that don’t have the time, knowledge, desire, or a combination of the three to worry about placing advertising. And while a brand-new media plan is quite valuable, I think a good chunk of the value hides in the analysis us planners do on the advertising a business already has (or had) in place.

Before a media planner really begins a plan, we scrutinize how a business currently advertises, looking for ways to improve the existing before recommending additions. This is where we identify when an unsuspecting business might be the victim of what a sales representative might call “The Greatest Deal in Advertising. Period.” So many times, we find these “great deals” are anything but. I’ve seen businesses run it all: ads that air between 12 am and 6 am (yes, AM), ads that miss their targets completely (think Axe Body Spray commercial on the Lifetime network), ads that are too small to even be noticed, ads that… well, I think you get the picture.

When prodded for why they signed contracts for ads such as these, many businesses answer, “Because it was cheap!” Hey, a business can’t be blamed for this misfortune, however. They were probably given a flashy presentation by a rep that threw out phrases like “limitless frequency” or “unparalled reach” and with thoughts of seeing their ads air during The Tonight Show and the big-time sales that would surely follow, signed the dotted line. Getting our hands on what those reps are feeding you and translating confusing rate schedules or calculating gross rating points are what us media planners were put on this earth to do! After doing so, we’re able to point out how and why your prior/current advertising wasn’t/won’t be effective for you. THIS is where I believe the value lies. Armed with what won’t work is just as valuable as knowing what will. And whether or not a business continues to use us media planners after we’ve explained this, they’re forever equipped with information on what to avoid altogether when the sales reps come knocking.