Looking forward to 2008
Am I exaggerating when I say that Microsoft’s advent into the world of advertising is a bit apocalyptic? CEO Steve Ballmer recently announced that his company plans to generate 25 percent of its revenue from advertising within a few years—and the majority of it in the fairly near future. In May, Microsoft made a $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising specialist. In September, they paid $240 million for a stake in Facebook. On December 19, Microsoft and Viacom announced a long-term digital content and advertising partnership.
Don’t worry; it’s not like Microsoft will run the whole world. Google is merging with DoubleClick, and Yahoo has acquired Right Media, just to make sure the global advertising pie is cut into at least three pieces.
As if Google doesn’t already have enough revenue flooding in, they’re also getting into the newspaper media placement business. Yeah, the printed kind. They’re not the only ones pulling the rug out from under traditional media directors at advertising agencies; among others, a company called Mediabids is also selling print placement via Internet.
And wait a minute: is the Miami Herald (among other players in the journalism and advertising arenas) really outsourcing some of its copy editing and ad production to India? I thought we at least had some kind of monopoly on English-language communications.
Yeah, maybe “apocalyptic” is an exaggeration. But to many traditional ad agencies, it’s frightening to see this massive shift away from “the way we’ve always done things.”
AT&T assures us that good-ol’-fashioned advertising is still holding its own. A study commissioned by the telecommunications giant reports that most small businesses still see the Yellow Pages as highly effective, though Internet is on the rise (duh). Of the 1,000 small businesses they surveyed:
- 20 percent expect to spend more on Internet Yellow Pages.
- 38 percent expect to spend more on Internet banner ads.
- 43 percent said they spent more on keyword-search traffic this year compared with last year, and 34 percent expect to keep increasing that spending next year.
But print advertising placement will remain strong, as well (according to the survey):
- 72 percent expect to spend the same amount on print Yellow Pages advertising next year, and 11 percent will spend more.
- 19 percent also expect to spend more next year on newspaper and magazine ads—the second-most mentioned medium in the survey.
Those are interesting numbers. There sure must be a lot of extra advertising money laying around, if print placement is going to grow, even as other media categories skyrocket …
Gartner, Inc. predicts $11 billion of revenue from mobile advertising in 2011 (compared to under $1 billion in 2007).
In spite of a touchy economy, Emarketer predicts that online advertising will grow 29 percent in 2008. Even in skinny times, decision makers believe in the web because it offers more measurable results than most traditional media.
Emarketer expects social network advertising to grow by more than 60 percent this year. The social networks will have to be careful not to anger their members, as Facebook did, but one way or another, it’ll happen.
Where do we turn?
As creatives in the industry, how should we respond to these trends? Hard to say, but I can see some new doors opening, even as old ones close. I come from a writing background, so I hate to admit that people are reading fewer words and watching more videos, but it’s true. I’ve already seen my product mix shift away from brochures and print ads—and even somewhat from website writing. I’m doing more visual media scripts than ever before.
Is it sad? Maybe. But those of us who do still enjoy reading can see the writing on the wall. So we make adjustments and learn new skills. And the new way of doing things is actually fun, if you roll with it. With video running full-steam ahead in virtually every new media category, I particularly enjoy the endless possibilities offered by combinations of video and animation. Used to be, only the highest budgets allowed me to write anything that popped into my head. Now, if I can imagine it, a designer can create it. O brave new world.
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“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
–Dorothy
