Media Re:public

Persephone Miel

Image – my own snapshot of the paper version of Metro, since the online version doesn’t have the graphics.

Or at least, the Boston Phoenix does, until it fixes its website! I went to Classified/Real Estate/Boston/Sublets (and remember this is a Boston-based paper).  Look closely at the first results I got. They’re ALL for apartments in the beautiful state of Arizona (Conspiracy theorists will ask if the McCain campaign might be behind this?). And they all have the same New Jersey phone number, which appeared in dozens more ads, including some describing apartments in Cambridge and Boston.  It was too late in the day for me to stomach calling it to see what they would try to sell me.

I know the classifieds are free, but so is Craigslist, and they’ve figured out how to keep the spam down (note that the Phoenix’s “report this ad” link doesn’t actually let you do that, it takes you back in to the classifieds).

Tags: advertising, spam

“Content may be king, but the customer is God,” said Richard Sarnoff of Bertelsmann, at We Media Miami.

The comment brought to mind the mantra of my fellow fellow the wise Doc Searls: As readers/viewers/listeners, we’re not customers for ad-supported media, we’re their product. They’re selling our “eyeballs,” “mindshare” and “loyalty” to their godlike customers, the advertisers. I’m with Doc that advertising is not going to go away completely, but a re-imagining is very needed. Maybe the next generation of weblings will not aspire to being publishers (everybody is a publisher, after all, how 5 seconds ago), but the true masters of their own media universe, the advertisers of their product-selves.

Persephone

I found this piece by Dave Morgan on Google competing with media companies very convincing and a little frightening. This is why newspaper execs complain that they’re getting “10 cents on the dollar” when they sell advertising in their online editions: 90% of online ad money goes to search. Google plans on keeping it that way. Who can blame them?
Persephone

Quiz Answers!

1. In first 3 quarters of 2007, how much money was spent to buy advertising in all the following media combined: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, billboards and those annoying inserts in the Sunday paper?
Answer: C) $108 billion – ok, maybe it’s just me, but it still seems like a lot of money. And remember, that doesn’t include 4th quarter, which is normally more than quarters 1-3. For comparison, total 2006 spending was just shy of $150 billion.

1a) Extra credit international question: In 2006, the U.S. ad market was what % of the global ad market? (answer below)

2. For the same period (Jan-Sept 2007) match the media to the appropriate % of the total:
1) Magazines B) 20%
2) Internet D) 8%
3) Radio E) 7%
4) Newspapers C) 18%
5) TV A) 43% (The other numbers are tricky, but if you didn’t guess TV was the biggest, you might want to consider some media lit’racy classes)
6) Outdoor (billboards) + Inserts F) 4%

3. Online advertising in the first three quarters of 2007 was up over the same period by what percentage?
B) 17% (and everyone says the rate of growth in 2008 will be even higher, keep reading)

3a) Extra credit – what do forecasters predict for online advertising total for 2008?

4. Now that you have all the data, match the numbers to the media
1) Newspapers C) $19.2 billion (down 5.00% over ‘06)
2) Radio A) $7.9 billion (down 1.8%)
3) Internet B) $8.3 billion (up 17.2% and beating radio in dollar value for the first time)
4) Magazines D) $21.8 billion (this “dying” medium was UP 4.20% over last year, thank you very much)

Source: TNS Media Intelligence
I found it here

Extra credit answers:
1a) In 2006 the US represented 37% of the global ad market
Source: GroupM, This Year, Next Year, Dec. 2007
I found it here
3a) one prediction is “nearly $28 billion, a 29% increase over 2007”
Source: Emarketer
I found it here

While I process all the interesting conversations I’ve had recently on participatory media, here’s a quick quiz to put the ad market in perspective in this post-shopping frenzy season. Answers on New Year’s Day, or send me your best guess at pmiel at cyber dot law dot harvard dot edu and I’ll send you the answers early.

Quiz!

Without looking it up anywhere answer these questions:

1. In first 3 quarters of 2007, how much money was spent to buy advertising in all the following media combined: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, billboards and those annoying inserts in the Sunday paper?

A) $9.5 billion
B) $54 billion
C) $108 billion
D) $327 billion

2. For the same period (Jan-Sept 2007) match the media to the correct % of the total:
1) Magazines
2) Internet
3) Radio
4) Newspapers
5) TV*
6) Outdoor (billboards) + Inserts

*Including ads on broadcast, cable, spanish-language, and syndicated programming

A) 43%
B) 20%
C) 18%
D) 8%
E) 7%
F) 4%

3. Online advertising in the first three quarters of 2007 grew in comparison to the same period in 2006 by what percentage?

A) 10%
B) 17%
C) 50%
D) 150%

4. And now that you have all the data, match the actual numbers to the media:

1) Newspapers
2) Radio
3) Internet
4) Magazines

$ spent on advertising Jan-Sept 2007
A) $7.9 billion
B) $8.3 billion
C) $19.2 billion
D) $21.8 billion

Good Luck and Happy New Year!
Persephone