Bernstein Ad Tracker, Releases Report

“ There's a Turn, But Will There Be a U-Turn?” which is a bottoms-up analysis of quarterly U.S. advertising trends using publicly reported, quarterly financial results.

Highlights of the report include:

* Q2 U.S. advertising growth was -14.0%, 190 bps better than the decline in 1Q and the first sequential acceleration in quarterly growth since 1Q:08. Excluding Online, growth in traditional media advertising declined by -16.5%, 300 bps better than the decline in Q1. According to the report, Q1’09 was the trough in advertising growth.

* The sectors that drove the sequential improvement in advertising growth were Retail, Media & Entertainment, Telecom, and Government/Political. 17 out of 19 industry sectors reduced advertising spending year-on-year in Q2. The 2 industries that increased advertising were Telecom (+17%) and Restaurants (+4%). Telecom advertising growth in the second quarter accelerated to an astonishing 17.4% compared to 4.0% in the Q1. Telecom alone accounted for over 60% of the sequential improvement in growth. The biggest beneficiaries of the increase in Telecom advertising in the Q2 were Display Internet and Broadcast Networks.

* In terms of contribution to the Q2 decline, Newspapers led the way, accounting for 27% of the total decline, followed by TV Stations (18%), Radio (17%) and Online (9%). Cable Networks posted the smallest decline in the second quarter, at -3.8%, followed by Broadcast Networks at -4.6% and Online at -5.5%. Only 3 out of the 32 companies in the Ad Tracker posted positive growth in the second quarter: Google (+3.5%), Discovery (+0.7%) and National Cinemedia (+11.6%).

* The declines in local advertising (e.g., TV Stations, Radio Stations, Newspapers) continue to outpace the declines in national advertising. Local advertising declined by -23.3% in Q2 compared to the national advertising decline of -6.3%. Local advertising has not posted positive growth since Q4’06, and this is only the third quarter that national advertising had declined – in sync with the recession.

Bernstein Research

Posted via email from Local Andy

ReachLocal Grossed $147 Million

Thanks once again to Peter Krasilovsky for some excellent analysis on the local space:

ReachLocal Grossed $147 Million in 2008; Projects ‘09 Growth

August 14, 2009

One of the big q's in local has been how well ReachLocal is doing. The SMB online advertising consultant was reportedly valued at $305 million after an October 2007 investment round. While ReachLocal says that number is “inaccurate,” the company’s ultimate success – still undetermined — would have important implications on the future of small business marketing.

At this point, the company has expanded rapidly to 38 offices in the U.S., Canada, Australia (in 2007) and the U.K. (in late 2008). It has 800 employees, including 500 sales people; and it has added display to its search offerings.

But we’ve also heard reports of scary levels of churn, both among customers and salespeople – something else that the company says is inaccurate. While additional information isn’t provided on churn, a spokesman says its numbers are well south of the 60 percent+ levels cited in a recent report.

Read the rest of the article and other great posts on the Local Onliner....

Posted via email from Local Andy

Very interesting data points on Twitter

"The problem with most analysis on Twitter," says Rohit Bhargava in a post at the Influential Marketing Blog, "is that it is limited by the minimal amount of data that Twitter collects." He found some useful information, however, in a comprehensive eport on Twitter usage recently released by Sysomos. Here are a few of the key takeaways Bhargava cites:

 

• More than 20% of Twitter accounts are empty placeholders. In other words, a fifth of Twitter's registered users have never posted a single tweet. According to Bhargava, they've likely claimed a username for later use, or signed up and never followed through.
• The magic number for followers is 150. "In a particularly interesting data point from the survey," he says, "Sysomos found that Twitter users tended to 'follow back' all their followers up until about 150 connections. Then the reciprocation rate fell off dramatically."
• A slight 5% of users generate 75% of the activity. "A steep curve of a small minority of actively engaged content creators generating most of the activity on a site is common among social networks," notes Bhargava, "but it is steeper and more pronounced on Twitter."
• Weekly activity peaks on Tuesday. The next most active days are Wednesday and Friday.

 

The Po!nt: You need data. According to Bhargava, the Sysomos report and others like it can help you and your brand better understand how to make the most of Twitter.

 

Source: Influential Marketing. Click here for the full post.

Posted via email from Local Andy

Twitter Takin' Heat

Twitter isn't just in the news these days -- they are the news.  In the midst of an attack that overwhelmed Twitter today, it seems as though everybody is racing to adopt policies to address the phenomenon.  Here are a few examples:

I.  From PCWorld:  "Social Network Policies:  Pentagon vs. NFL"

This week, two major organizations have made headlines by banning social networking in one way or another. The United States Marines have issued a direct order from the top that all social media is banned on Marine networks and computer devices for a period of one year. At the same time, the NFL has banned players from using Twitter.

Social media hasn’t been banned by all branches of the military. The United States Army has officially embraced Twitter as a means of pseudo-public relations and microblogging the story of their efforts in Afghanistan.

 

That said, perhaps it should be banned. There have been a number of high profile leaks or breaches of sensitive information via social networking. In February of this year Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) tweeted sensitive information regarding his movements while in Iraq including “Moved into green zone by helicopter Iraqi flag now over palace. Headed to new US embassy Appears calmer less chaotic than previous here [sic].”

 

It doesn’t even have to be the individual in question posting the information. A more recent leak occurred when the wife of the head of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service posted details about where they live and work, who their friends are, where they go on vacation, and other sensitive information on her Facebook page.

 

Contrast those violations of confidential and national security type information with whether or not NFL football players are allowed to tweet from a locker room and it seems like a silly comparison. The justification from the NFL is that players may speak too openly about the conflicts and drama that go on in the locker room or leak injury information that the team would rather their opponents not be aware of.

II.   From WebProNews:  "ESPN To Employees:  Only Tweet About ESPN"

UPDATE: ESPN has responded to the rumored Twitter policy, by releasing their "ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING"

"ESPN regards social networks such as message boards, conversation pages and other forms of social networking such as Facebook and Twitter as important new forms of content. As such, we expect to hold all talent who participate in social networking to the same standards we hold for interaction with our audiences across TV, radio and our digital platforms. This applies to all ESPN Talent, anchors, play by play, hosts, analysts, commentators, reporters and writers who participate in any form of personal social networking that contain sports related content.

ESPN Digital Media is currently building and testing modules designed to publish Twitter and Facebook entries simultaneously on ESPN.com, SportsCenter.com, Page 2, ESPN Profile pages and other similar pages across our web site and mobile platforms. The plan is to fully deploy these modules this fall."

The next time ESPN makes a policy change for their employees, they need to be careful with the wording to avoid this type of media coverage.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: A rumor has begun floating around tonight that ESPN has all but ended employee tweeting - unless it serves ESPN. But, what does this mean exactly? Are ESPN employees suppose to become mindless robots who only talk about ESPN, with no mention of their pesonal lives?

Posted via email from Local Andy

Are we in a Social Media bubble?

I love this post because it reminds me of something Greg Stuart used to say during the very early days at cars.com:  "Is it a planet or a comet."  Chasing after the exact right way to use Twitter strategically is the wrong approach.  Figuring out your social media strategy is as far as you need to be today.

Are we in a Social Media bubble?

by Josh Gordon in Social Media Today on 07/28/2009

You may not agree with this but you can't ignore it either. A recent issue of Media Life lays out a compelling case making the current enthusiasm for social media sound a lot like the "irrational exuberance" that led to the dot com bubble crash of 2001.

Consider:

"The fact is, it's a good bet these social networking sites will never figure out a workable business model because there may not be one. On the internet, it's accepted faith that if you build traffic, revenue will follow, typically from advertising.

But it simply may not apply to social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.

That's for a reason that makes perfect sense on the face of it. Social networking sites are about people communicating with one another and sharing information. It's not a format that's suited for ad messages. In that environment, advertising becomes social interference, in some ways akin to eavesdropping, and it has the potential to backfire.

Why should we know this already? Because of the telephone.

Telephones have been around for more than 100 years, and yet despite numerous attempts, Americans have resisted attempts to put advertising on phones, even when the phone service was offered for free. Note too the rising public protest over telephone marketing, which eventually led to the federal do-not-call program several years ago.

One might argue that over time internet users will give in and accept advertising on their social networking sites. One might also reason that over time hell will indeed freeze over and Canada will indeed run dry. But it is the sort of bet anyone in their right mind would place billions on? No.

There are several lessons to be drawn from this.

One is that where big money in involved--call it greed--our inability to remember lessons of the past can be mind-numbing.

Another is that after all these years, we still don't fully appreciate how different and unique a medium the internet really is. We assume that because advertising works in some environments, it works in all. And it doesn't."

Agree or not, economic bubbles happen. One could happen again.    

Read the article, "Listen for the pop of social media" in Media Life 

Posted via email from Local Andy