Print advertising biggest loser to social media, says survey

ore than half of large businesses had allocated funds away from traditional media to fund social media

Comments

Jason Bishop
21 Apr 10
12:58 pm



Shifting to social media will be good in that it will save a lot of paper. I really think, however, that advertising on social media sites will be poorly received. After all, they are “social” media sites.

Anonymous
21 Apr 10
2:05 pm



I bet they didn’t ask how many have shifted investment, worked out they can’t build enough reach to generate sufficient response or return in the required time frame and are now moving back, watch this space!

Brian
21 Apr 10
2:11 pm



Maybe I’m getting old, but I regularly use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and can’t recall engaging in any ads. Ever. People actually search for these ads/brands or it’s incidental on the homepage? Forgive my ignorance.

anon1
21 Apr 10
2:15 pm



@Jason “I really think, however, that advertising on social media sites will be poorly received. After all, they are “social” media sites.”

I agree – unless it is properly conceived and targeted. I have seen examples of cleverly targeted and relevant marketing and advertising that is very well received. I have also seen many examples of user-to-user marketing, where social media sites act like a kind of informal noticeboard or even eBay for commercial services run by users.

There is nothing to stop companies being users. Just look at the Whirlpool boards: staff from various ISPs interact there all the time with potential and existing customers. Such that when they announce new services or products through those forums, they are received with appreication and gladness, rather than resented as spam.

Done appropriately, it can be beloved. Done wrongly, it is loathed.

Community College
21 Apr 10
2:19 pm



I agree with @Anonymous
Eagerly awaiting the day that the ass falls out of social media and people become aware of the limitations the ‘medium’ offers. It does have a purpose don’t get me wrong but it really isn’t the be all and end all of marketing as it seems to be touted by many and serious marketers really need to realise this. It’s become such a media buzzword, marketing managers ask agencies what their ‘social media’ strategy is, just because they feel they should theses days, without even knowing what it is. Surely the fact that magazines are one of the last mediums that are actually PURCHASED has to count for something. An engaged audience? Rather than a passive audience, skimming over ads to actually get to the ‘social’ part of the medium. The collective wank circle that is social media currently is pretty cringe-worthy. We’ll laugh about it in 5 years.

Geoff Drucker
21 Apr 10
2:20 pm



And it won’t be long before print media starts to get ignored by PRs, because as advertising content diminishes, so too will the number of pages in publications, and therefore stories. So the chances of getting a run for a good yarn will diminish accordingly. There are wonderful ways for print media to get smart about their future of living with new media; I just wonder how long it will take their chiefs to realise.

paul
21 Apr 10
2:29 pm



Percentages can hide a multitude of sins, it would be interesting to see an actual dollar figure on this.

Brian
21 Apr 10
2:35 pm



“Geoff Drucker” as someone who works in print media I think I speak for a lot of the industry when I say we dream of the day “when we get ignored by PRs”. But you’re right about print failing to embrace digital and that’s for two reasons: one) their business model is so shaped around the printing press and two) the “chiefs” as you call them are too set in their ways (see: “too old” to get it).

Jimi Bostock
21 Apr 10
2:38 pm



Was there any numbers on how much was shifted, that would be an interesting question.

I would have thought that television would be higher, although it is not insignificant as it is (15%). Isn’t TV where the eyeballs are leaving in favour of online.

Jason, I have to wonder how FaceBook advertising works in your suggestion. I have done some very successful facebook campaigns. As the red head says, please explain?

And Anonymous (cool name), it would be a bigger please explain for you. While you are watching this space, keep an eye out for “long tail”, it might be not the mouth that you should be looking at

Jimi Bostock
PUSH Agency
Brisbane | Canberra | Sydney | Australia
pushagency.net

paul
21 Apr 10
2:39 pm



The survey also didn’t ask where the majority of their ‘traditional media spend’ is located. If print wasn’t a major part of their comms mix, then all they have done is changed the name of print to social media.

Also i believe most marketers if they aren’t making budget, the first thing to go will be social media…

A
21 Apr 10
2:40 pm



I have to agree with Community College , Jason Bishop and Anonymous. Social Media seems to be the new buzzword and so called Social Media experts are just taking people for a ride. Traditional media must change, but social media is not the universal panacea many people believe it is.

Kerryn
21 Apr 10
2:49 pm



Did anyone see the story on Media Watch Monday night about the 2 teachers from Warwick who were supposedly showing off their porn pics on Facebook?

Those grubby little bottom-feeding journalists…sorry columnists… who completely invaded 2 peoples’ privacy and possibly damaged their careers…

…is the press that desperate for stories they would destroy people like that? Or am I just in Pollyanna Land?

…jeez I used to get angry watching Current Affair. Now I get all throat-punchy watching Media Watch.

Social media is the new news source for grubby stuff like that. But I guess the lesson from this teacher’s story is Facebook ain’t private. It’s on the internet! Anyone is fair game for the next grubby news headline.

And I was very pleased to see one of the bottom feeder’s own FB page is no longer there.

Social justice? One can only hope…or am I really just as bad as them wanting to see the grubby columnists publicly crushed too?

Kerryn

Gabriel
21 Apr 10
3:05 pm



What’s wrong with acknowledging different mediums can achieve different objectives and integrated campaigns across both new and traditional media often work best. The reality is, it’s a case by case basis and does (read: should) depend on objectives and measurable ROI and the type of business and consumers.

NB. Devil is always in the detail. Did no one else find it relatively unsurprising the study was commissioned by Community Engine…

Check out their blurb…

Community Engine (www.communityengine.com) enables organisations to harness the power of the social media communications phenomenon. The company builds proprietary social networks for organisations, helping them to increase revenue, decrease costs and improve stakeholder satisfaction. Community Engine’s social networking technology directly connects businesses to their customers, associations to their members, politicians to their constituents, management to their staff and people to their communities. Community Engine’s growing client base includes Federal and State governments, Events New South Wales, the ACTU, the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia, the Australian Labor Party, the Australia Council for the Arts, National Parks & Wildlife, Tourism Tasmania and Fbi Radio. Community Engine was established in 2008 and is headquartered in Sydney with local offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin, Melbourne and Perth.

Government funded perhaps??

On another point…very little detail on the methodology…

“The Nielsen Community Engine 2010 Social Media Business Benchmarking Study was designed to deliver quantitative data about the perspective of Australian businesses on social media, their past, present and intended behaviours, their attitudes towards this media and investment levels. The research was commissioned by Community Engine and conducted by Nielsen in March 2010 among a sample of 347 respondents, of which 140 were in businesses employing 100 or more staff.”

So if we look at the 140 non SME’s who are moving their money from print (47%)…for mine makes 66 companies. Not sure about you, but 66 is not a very robust sample.

I’d also like to know what industries and types of business were in this very robust sample to give the report detail and context.

anon1
21 Apr 10
3:10 pm



@Kerryn “Those grubby little bottom-feeding journalists…sorry columnists…”

Grow up. Do you find it amusing or acceptable for two adults to simulate a lap dance in front of children? I find it inappropriate, puerile, and wrong.

(Mumbrella adds: As comments further down reflect, anon1 is mixing up two stories. The lap dancign one didn;t take place in Australia and wasn’t featured on Media Watch)

A Facebook account is not “private” by its very nature. Nor is performing a simulated sex act in front of an audience a “private” activity.

And your post has zero to do with the topic under discussion. Go and rant on the newspaper site that ran it.

Andy
21 Apr 10
3:27 pm



Interesting many people comment that Social Media is all about ads – you miss the point. Social media is of benefit to not ‘push’ your message it is an opportunity to have a direct conversation with your customers and turn them to your brand authentically. Similar to a BBQ conversation but on steroids. The benefit is that the medium itself doesn’t charge for usage and it is a two way conversation. Anon1 is spot on, do it well and you will get the benefits, if you don’t get, it stay away. Here is our work in that space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwyQ61cx7x0

Andrew
Sensis

Kerryn
21 Apr 10
3:44 pm



anon1 “…Grow up. Do you find it amusing or acceptable for two adults to simulate a lap dance in front of children?…. ”

No of course I do not.

But the teachers did nothing of the sort.

Yes I may be off topic (you did, however, respond with a rude lecture)…but no wonder print is suffering when they have to raid social media like Facebook to MAKE UP sensational stories to sell their papers.

It’s a quality issue which must affect how companies spend money on advertising, surely?

Gina Lofaro aka the wordmistress
21 Apr 10
4:04 pm



It’s still early days for social media but I think anyone who underestimates its power will be left behind. Since it is so early in the piece, a great deal of experimentation is needed to perfect the methods used. And granted, while social media isn’t going to be the most appropriate answer for all companies/products, I’m sure there are some for whom it is THE answer, and no doubt, they’d be blitzing expectations. Social media is just a sophisticated form of word of mouth advertising, and WOM has been around as long as people have.

Gus
21 Apr 10
4:08 pm



anon1 “…Grow up. Do you find it amusing or acceptable for two adults to simulate a lap dance in front of children?…. ”

I think you have your stories mixed up. The FB story that Kerryn was talking about that was aired on Media Watch on Monday night had nothing to do with the story that you are talking about that appeared on news websites today.

Just an observation.

Ben S
21 Apr 10
4:31 pm



wow – what a surprise … a survey paid for by a company trying to push facebook pages and ‘social media’ to clients comes up with favourable sentiment for said company and medium.

add cliched quote and we have ourselves a good headline friendly piece of digital PR.

anon1
21 Apr 10
5:25 pm



@gus aha thanks. Quite why she chose to come in here and start talking about a two-day old, unrelated television programme is anyone’s guess.

But thank you for the clarification.

Carrob
21 Apr 10
5:46 pm



Hmmm. I am no social media expert. But I am one of the clueless “bosses” in print media that people in social networking refer to. Social media in my opinion is more of a customer service tool than a marketing tool. Perhaps it doesn’t belong to the marketing department at all? It’s a communication tool. Does the marketing department still look after those newfangled facsimile machines?

Seriously. this whole social media thing has the stink of dotcom about it. I just don’t get it. And yes. I am on facebook, twitter etc. But I am never going to be friends with Nissan or follow Starbucks. There’s a lot of people out there like me. And I suspect that we are a silent majority.

Social media is great. It does work. But only for some things. Like keeping up to speed with friends. But the people who push this barrow the hardest are the people most likely to charge their clients for their services. The cynic in me just can’t help wonder that this money being spent is an opportunities for agency’s to make some money from extra creative services.

After all who would want to spend money on actual advertising? That’s wasted money that we could spend internally on some quickly forgettable stunt that may generate a bit of publicity in the trade press?

It’s all arse about. Once the marketers get into the social media they will destroy it’s very viability and end up ruining the experience. A classic catch 22 situation.

Some will do good work. But the vast majority will do bad work. And they will bring the whole thing down.

You know it makes sense.

Ben S
21 Apr 10
6:22 pm



Carrob – I’ll say it before anyone else does … and please read this with a really smarmy, patronising tone attached …

“You just don’t get it, things have changed.”

If you don’t understand social media and agree with the self anointed experts and join in the chorus about how much of a cultural revolution it is, you just don’t get it.

What ‘it’ is … I’m not so sure.

Mr Network
21 Apr 10
7:54 pm



I thought that there is ‘media’, which comprises many different elements and one of the many elements is social networking sites…?

As for the shift. If I were a marketing manager I would certainly save money by utilising social networks to engage with my target market and at a fraction of the cost too!

I could be hidden away on page 7 of a magazine where readers might see my advert. the space has cost me $1500 and my creative agency charged me $3k for the creative…

Print has a purpose and is not going to die overnight. The priority of marketing nowadays does not necessarily mean print first. Website first, social media second and back it up with some traditional…perhaps…

Many agencies are still getting it wrong and many clients are paying through the roof for campaigns that could engage with their target market for a fraction of the cost and then could be backed up by traditional…

rb
21 Apr 10
8:33 pm



Wow…how many scared social media haters can u get commenting on 1 blog?

Social media is here to stay and can only grow. It provides advertisers
with a cost effective way to engage with and talk to potential customers directly and
Over and over again without any extensive creative costs. The brand owns the audience and therefore does not have to keep paying
a publisher for access to their audience. In effect the brand becomes the publisher.

How could any marketing manager not see the long term benefit in that?

Oh..and how many under 25 year olds do you see reading a magazine or newspaper these days?
Not many…they too busy on facebook. These young people won’t change habits as they grow older either.
They will only continue and pass the habits onto there kids. Prints future will only continue to get worse

Joel
21 Apr 10
9:38 pm



@rb – I’m under 25 and I read the paper a few times a week.

Ben S
21 Apr 10
9:51 pm



“The brand owns the audience and therefore does not have to keep paying
a publisher for access to their audience”

This concept is nothing new … it goes back to the early soap operas … from branded magazines to DM to branded entertainment etc etc … this concept has always been the holy grail for marketing services providers as all of them hate having to fork out such large chunks of budget to media owners.

The social media army would be considered more credible if they stopped dancing on other mediums graves as a way of legitimising their own.

anon1
21 Apr 10
10:36 pm



@Carrob ” Social media in my opinion is more of a customer service tool than a marketing tool.”

The issue is more that customer service is becoming a marketing tool (see my example of Whirlpool above). It’s part of the democratisation and empowerment of consumers – shitty phrase I know, it sounds like marketingspeak – that the internet has enabled.

People don’t need or want to be dictated to by Big Companies any more. Or government. Or celebrities. Or any other previous “authority” type figures. Instead, Big Companies now need to bend down and woo consumers. Otherwise they face the threat of appalling publicity, which cannot be controlled in any practical way (see the Streisand Effect). We talk about b2b and b2c: social media is essentially c2c and marketers and businesses can’t just barge in there.

>Seriously. this whole social media thing has the stink of dotcom about it. I just don’t get it. And yes. I am on facebook, twitter etc. But I am never going to be friends with Nissan or follow Starbucks. There’s a lot of people out there like me. And I suspect that we are a silent majority.

>It’s all arse about. Once the marketers get into the social media they will destroy it’s very viability and end up ruining the experience. A classic catch 22 situation.

I totally agree with you on these two points. The sheer volume of “social media experts” is bubble warning enough.

Carrob
22 Apr 10
12:55 pm



See. Here’s the thing. I am not a social media hater.

Why are social media zealots so touchy about their chosen way of bilking marketers out of their budgets?

Yes. Social media is a media. But it is not the holy grail that so many of you preach of. It’s just another useful tool.

But why are the only people making money out of social media the people selling their social media expertise. I have posed this question to Tim in the past. To my knowledge the only person making a decent living from blogging in Australia is that ProBlogger guy. No one can nominate anyone else. It’s a gold rush, and the only people making money are the people selling the picks.

Yes, it is a democratisation of the media through the internet. It is also a democratisation with no business model behind it.

I have seen this before. It was dot com times. Sorry but I am older than 25 and I have seen this stuff before. We didn’t get it. dStore was going to revolutionise the internet. It was like a department store – but without the overheads man! David Jones should look out. They were going to crush them in 5 years. I am not a social media hater. But there are certain patterns in an over hyped bubble market. The social media business is exhibiting those symptoms right now.

I will reiterate again, that this is a customer service thing. And I have no problems with the changed paradigm that this represents. Our business does a lot of work via twitter. We have a facebook fan page. We engage with our consumers, and we don’t charge for it. It is unprofitable. But it is not the be all and end all. And yes. It is a two way conversation.

But please spare me the big business thing. Big businesses are trying to streamline their interactions with customers and save money wherever possible. Call entres didn’t move to India for better customer service. Just how is all this managed in a few years time when (say) 300,000 people want help from Optus via their facebook and twitter accounts? Will Optus pony up the costs of running this campaign effectivley?

I doubt it. By it’s nature social media is not scalable. Nor is able to be commoditised. It is not the be all and end all.

Please people. Build yourselves a sturdy bridge and get over it.

You know it makes sense.

Paul Montgomery
22 Apr 10
2:59 pm



You can see why Tim attacks social media people with such venom, he’s obviously playing to his audience based on this comment thread.

mumbrella
22 Apr 10
3:24 pm



That’s right Paul,

I hate social media people and so do our 10,000 or so followers on, um, Twitter.

I pop along to Social Media Club Sydney to tell them that venomously, then I’ll stop off at Digital Citizens to give them the message. And then if I really want to stick it to those social media bastards I’ll go and have several drinks with them at #shtbox.

That’ll show em.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

Jason Bishop
22 Apr 10
3:25 pm



Even if I am just looking at my Facebook page without even looking at the ads, I feel like I am being intruded upon by subliminal advertising.

I don’t see how the advertising people think that they can do whatever they like with MY Facebook page.

Facebook administration should provide opt-out function for people who do not want to have unsolicited advertising thrust in their faces.

Am I correct in recalling that there is already legislation in Australia that covers unsolicited advertising? I don’t know for sure but remember hearing something.

As to whether a Facebook campaign is successful or not. I believe that depends solely on your point of view.

Heredownunder
13 May 10
9:04 am



Moving marketing spend into social media does not mean that they are going to be spending all of that money on banner type advertising.

Some of this would be marketing and tracking just to help get their brande involved on Facebook and Twitter. Or setting up blogs or micro sites to help engage customers linking to social media. And so on…

I think we all have to get the fact that Gen Y are on social media and that they are not watching TV or reading newspapers any more.

If corporations, retail, and other B2C do not meet them in this space they will be left behind to the competition.

Heredownunder
13 May 10
9:10 am



Get in the picture guys. Social media is bigger than Porn. Teenagers have the best communication tools of any generation in the palm of their hand. What are they doing with it?
http://www.tvweek.com/news/201.....elying.php