Wall Street Journal surpasses USA Today as No. 1

Wall Street Journal surpasses USA Today as No. 1

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The Handy Book was the perfect survival manual, when it first came out in 1882 -- and remains a classic today in its 37th printing! It contains plans for 16 kinds of kites and hot-air balloons and fishing tackle. It tells you how to make and stock an aquarium, to construct a water telescope and how to camp out without a tent or in a hut made from pine boughs. How to build 10 kinds of boats, including a flatboat with a covered cabin. How to make bird calls and squirt guns with astonishing range!The ultimate pre-TV, anti-couch potato activity book, it answers the question,

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Fantastic Article About Print Media

Four new strategies offer a path to future profits for today’s troubled newspaper and magazine companies.

Reinventing Print Media

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As US newspaper publishers mull charging readers on the Web, aPennsylvania daily announced plans on Monday to put some content behind a pay wall.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said "PG+" would be a "members-only website with interactive features and exclusive content" available to subscribers for 36 dollars a year or for 3.99 dollars a month.

It said "PG+" would not replace Post-Gazette.com, the newspaper's current website, but would feature "a new stream of exclusive blogs, videos, live chats and behind-the-scenes insights into the news of the day."

Post-Gazette.com will continue to provide its mix of content and would remain free, the newspaper said.

The Post-Gazette's move comes as newspapers across the United Statesgrapple with a steep plunge in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Rupert Murdoch's media giant News Corp. is holding talks with other leading newspaper publishers on forming a consortium that would charge for news online and on portable devices.

The newspaper said News Corp.'s chief digital officer, Jonathan Miller, is believed to have met with representatives of The New York Times Co.,Washington Post Co., Hearst Corp. and Tribune Co., publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

Media analysts have been engaged in a fierce debate over whether readers would be willing to pay for news online after becoming accustomed for so many years to getting it for free.

CBS to run video ad in magazine this fall!
by Caroline McCarthy

NEW YORK--Broadcast network CBS will be advertising its fall TV season with a video-chip ad embedded in an issue of Entertainment Weekly.

The September 18 issue of the Time Inc.-owned magazine will feature the first video ad to appear in print, George Schweitzer, CBS marketing president, said Wednesday at a press conference at the company's headquarters here.

The ad will be launched in partnership with PepsiCo to promote Pepsi Max soda and the TV network's Monday prime-time lineup. Not everyone will be seeing it: the ad will appear in a magazine insert sent to subscribers in the New York and Los Angeles areas--an edition without the video chip will be sent to subscribers elsewhere and show up on newsstands.

The technology for the battery-powered ads was manufactured by a Los Angeles-based company called Americhip, and each ad can handle about 40 minutes of video.

Here are some more details about the Americhip technology: the screen, which is 2.7 millimeters thick, has a 320x240 resolution. The battery lasts for about 65 to 70 minutes, and can be recharged, believe it or not, with a mini USB cord--there's a jack on the back of it. The screen, which uses thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) technology, is enforced by protective polycarbonate. It's a product that has been in development at Americhip for about two years, spokesman Tim Clegg told CNET News via e-mail.

"It's leadership in innovation, which we really stress at CBS in every part of our company," Schweitzer said of the ads, which were developed with the collaboration of the Ignition Factory, a division of the Omnicom Group's OMD media agency.

PepsiCo has been experimenting with edgy, experimental ads for some time now, distributing millions of 3D glasses for its SoBe LifeWater Super Bowl ad earlier this year. It more recently launched a new Mountain Dew flavor by inviting prominent Twitter users to a party at a trendy Brooklyn venue.

Pepsi Max is the company's new diet soda geared toward men, advertised earlier this summer with bold print ads that declared, "Save the calories for bacon."

"The evolution of marketing television in the fall--it used to be as simple as this," Schweitzer said, holding up a vintage copy of TV Guide. "It was axiomatic in those days. If you took an ad in TV Guide, people watched your program. Not anymore."

Disclosure: CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.

This post was updated at 1:38 p.m. PT with more details about Americhip's technology.

Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline.

Media moguls rethink Web advertising in downturn
By Gina Keating and Alex Dobuzinskis
PASADENA, Calif (Reuters) - The recession-fueled advertising downturn underlines the urgency of using the Web to glean data and target consumers directly, rather than blasting them with a barrage of TV-style ads, media executives say.

At the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference in Pasadena this week, Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Robert Iger opened a discussion about new ways to market to consumers, when he described himself as, "pretty bullish about what technology is going to allow in terms of behavioral tracking."

Executives from AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc, News Corp and IAC/InterActiveCorp echoed similar hopes about the potential to reach consumers online.

As advertising dollars grow ever more scarce, companies have been forced to rethink how they reach consumers and have moved away from the traditional 30-second spot to the kinds of targeted, Internet-driven marketing campaigns that have been talked about for years.

Internet advertising in the United States -- a $23.4 billion market in 2008 -- was down 5 percent in the first quarter of this year and Iger and other executives say the sector may not return to the historic growth trajectory seen before the recession.

Jonathan Miller, head of News Corp's Digital Media Group, believes advertising is undergoing, "fundamental changes ... and you have to tease them out of the recession effects.

"Marketing is on an arc to become more efficient. My dollar should go further. And that says the advertising pool may not grow at the rate that it's traditionally grown at, even out of this recession."

HITTING THE TARGET
Targeting consumers via demographics, profiling, and their social networks, "you learn a lot about people and you can identify them," Miller added.

The thinking among these media executives is that advances in technology is enabling them to build more detailed profiles of consumers -- which can then either be sold as a commodity or employed in their own marketing campaigns.

AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong, former sales chief at Google Inc, also sees new marketing opportunities from consumer referrals and tracking.

"Where people actually go, what they do, how they do it," he said. "It's not just about data, it's about the insight. If you're Procter & Gamble, or Kellogg's, or Coke or whatever, forget all the data.

What is the insight you get out of it? How does that actually change your perception?"

But Ed Moran, director of product innovation for Deloitte, said tracking tastes and developing profiles is fine, as long as advertisers do not make the old media mistake of finding their optimum consumers, only to show them a commercial.

Moran said next-generation advertising will be driven by the tastes and habits of 14 to 24 year-old "millennials" whose lives center on social networks and Internet-enabled handsets.
"A more effective way of reaching these young folks ... is to use their social networks as influencers, rather than bombarding them with ads," Moran said.

To that end, Barry Diller, chief executive of Web giant IAC/InterActiveCorp, said Internet advertising must evolve from displays and become integrated into the content of websites.
Even actor and media producer Ashton Kutcher chimed in at the conference, saying the billboard-style display ad is already outdated.

"People who have grown up on the Internet have trained themselves not to see it," he added.
(Reporting by Gina Keating and Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Edwin Chan and Andre Grenon))

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Convincing Consumers to Spend Again
by William J. Holstein
 
4/07/09
In a brutal sales environment, retailers and manufacturers, led by the auto industry, are finding that smarter marketing — not better products — may be the best way to a customer’s heart.

Joel Ewanick’s job as vice president of marketing for Hyundai Motor America put him on the front line last year in the effort to determine, in a bleak economic climate, what motivated people to buy cars and what frightened them away. As early as the summer of 2008, he began noticing in focus groups that more and more consumers were putting off vehicle purchases because they were worried about losing their jobs. “We had a consumer insight,” Ewanick recalls. “People were pulling back because of their long-term financial outlooks.”

Around the same time, Ewanick recalled getting unsolicited flyers in the mail from mortgage companies offering consumers relief from their monthly payments if they were to die or lose their jobs. He began to wonder if car companies could do the same thing.

He got the chance to test this possibility in the fall of 2008, as economic difficulties quickly deepened and credit dried up. It became clear “that this was no longer a garden variety recession,” Ewanick says. The industry’s sales plunged from what experts consider a healthy level of about 17 million units a year to a pace of about 9.2 million a year. Hyundai’s sales fell 41 percent in the fourth quarter. Traditional marketing clearly wasn’t enough.

Ewanick found a company called Walkaway USA, a subsidiary of EFG Companies in Irving, Tex., that specializes in helping auto dealers improve their sales. Walkaway was testing the concept of allowing financially troubled buyers in Canada to escape their purchase agreements. It was precisely the kind of innovation that Ewanick was looking for.

Ewanick signed Walkaway to manage a program in the U.S., calledHyundai Assurance, promising buyers that if they lost their jobs within a year, they could return their vehicles with no negative impact on their credit ratings. Walkaway would administer the program, which entails documenting that a customer has really lost his or her job. The program was launched in January 2009 via television commercials that feature an announcer soothing viewers: “These are tough times. We’re all going to get through it together.”

It seems to have worked. Hyundai’s sales in North America were up 4.9 percent in the first two months of 2009, when the overall market declined 39.4 percent from the comparable period in 2008.

Marketers today in all industries are forced to come up with similarly innovative ways to entice consumers to part with their money. Clothing retailers are offering two for the price of one sales, electronics stores are making extended warranties free, and airlines are offering deep fare discounts. But the auto industry has had to be particularly creative. Buying a big-ticket item like a car is a major commitment, and in difficult economic times consumers are more likely to avoid or delay such a purchase unless they can be convinced that they are getting a deal too good to turn down.

To make this case, in March, Ford Motor Company launched a two-month incentive program, the Ford Advantage Plan, that covers auto loan payments for up to a year if a customer loses his or her job. On the same day, the General Motors Corporation announced its Total Confidence plan, which picks up the tab on auto loans for laid-off customers for up to nine months. This program also provides up to US$5,000 to customers buying new GM vehicles to close out existing car loans if the value of the trade-in automobile has fallen below the loan payoff.

And last January, the Chrysler Corporation rolled out a program calledEmployee Pricing Plus, which expands on a marketing gimmick used before that offers customers the same price available to employees. In this twist, buyers also get cash rebates ranging from $3,500 to $6,000 and zero percent financing. Chrysler was also the first U.S. automaker to offer car buyers fuel cards that guaranteed fixed gasoline prices of no more than $2.99, with its Let’s Refuel America program.

That program was particularly popular when gasoline prices hovered near $4 a gallon. But now that prices have plunged, Pricelock Inc., the company administering the program, is adapting the offer to market it to companies that, for example, own fleets of commercial vehicles, says Robert Fell, Pricelock’s founder and chief executive officer. “In times of high gas prices, consumers are really interested in this product because they want peace of mind,” he explains. “But with lower prices, businesses are most interested because it’s a very effective cost insurance program.” Fell’s company, 20 percent of which is owned by the Goldman Sachs Group Inc., relies on Goldman to use derivatives to lock in gasoline prices.

Auto manufacturers also are being smarter about how they spend their hundreds of millions of marketing and advertising dollars, says Stephen Berkov, senior marketing analyst at the popular automotive Web sitewww.edmunds.com, based in Santa Monica, Calif. “When budgets are extremely constrained and the economy is in such dire straits, they are not going to market to people who are not in the market,” says Berkov, who is former head of marketing for Audi of America Inc.

One part of that effort is an attempt to use television advertising to drive potential buyers to Web sites, on the assumption that people who seek out information on the Internet have higher education levels and are more intent on actually purchasing a car, as opposed to merely browsing. Honda Motor Company, for example, is expected to launch an advertising effort in April to drive viewers to www.edmunds.com, which attracts 12.5 million users per month. The ads will urge customers to look at the “true cost to own,” an Edmunds-trademarked specialty, in considering whether to buy a Honda. The true cost of ownership, as the phrase suggests, adds up all the costs of operating and maintaining a vehicle over its lifetime, and the Edmunds site helps shoppers compare different models.

Companies are also spending more to engage with customers once they reach their Web sites. GM has increased the percentage of its advertising budget going to online outlets to 18 percent of its total, says Berkov, whereas a luxury and performance brand such as Porsche has hit the 50 percent threshold.

Overall, even luxury marques such as Mercedes-Benz USA Inc. and the BMW Group are stressing the value of their cars and financing packages. Some BMW dealerships in the New York metropolitan area are offering to pay the first three months of their customers’ leases. Berkov says it’s smart for the German luxury makers to offer such deals, at the risk of tarnishing their upscale images, because wealthy buyers now also need to validate their decision. “The luxury buyer needs to be able to justify to his friends why he pulled the trigger” and purchased or leased an expensive vehicle, Berkov explains.

Of all the new marketing efforts, the Hyundai Assurance program has attracted the most attention. In fact, the trend is already expanding beyond autos — Jet Blue Airways Corporation and home builders Toll Brothers Inc. and Lennar Corporation are offering similar programs. Hyundai does not require that a customer have a certain credit rating to enroll. If the buyer has a job and finances the purchase of a new Hyundai, whether through a bank or credit union or Hyundai itself, he or she qualifies. (Buyers who pay cash do not.) Until April 30, 2009, the company is also offering Assurance Plus, which covers the first three installment payments.

How long will automakers — and marketers in all industries — have to keep offering special marketing programs and incentives? “We hope we don’t need this forever,” Ewanick says of Hyundai Assurance. “I look forward to the day I can take it off.” Yet industry-wide annual car sales would have to reach the 12 million or 13 million unit-a-year level before marketers could even begin to ease back. From today’s perch, that seems a long way off; marketers are going to have to get used to seeking out solutions that are ever more inventive.

Author Profile:

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William J. Holstein is the author of Why GM Matters: Inside the Race to Transform an American Icon (Walker, 2009). For more on his work, see www.williamjholstein.com.

Study: Cutting Spending Hurts Brands Long Term
Following Boom/Bust Cycle Flirts With Danger
By Jack Neff Published: April 06, 2009

BATAVIA, Ohio (http://www.adage.com/) -- Household and personal care might once have seemed recession-resistant, but last year U.S.-based personal-care marketers actually cut ad spending faster than the general market. That could be potentially damaging for their brands, according to one study that shows that marketers that cut spending during a downturn lost share to private labels -- share they didn't regain.

Smaller, Nonpremium Brands at Risk? According to TNS Media Intelligence data analyzed by Sanford C. Bernstein last month, eight U.S.-based household and personal-care marketers covered by the company cut measured media spending an average of 8.8%, compared with a 5% cut among advertisers overall. The fourth quarter, in particular, was the culprit, according to separate research by Goldman Sachs based on TNS data, which found that U.S.-based household, personal-care and beauty marketers slashed spending 14% on average in the quarter, reversing a 3% year-on-year increase in the third quarter.

The reasons behind this surprising turn of events vary, but the implications are potentially dire. Research presented by University of North Carolina marketing professor Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp in a Bernstein conference call last month indicates that companies that maintained or hiked ad spending generally, and TV spending in particular, lost limited share to private labels in recessions between 1985 and 2005.

MARKETING IN A RECESSION Ad Age explores what marketers, media and agencies are doing to survive and even thrive in the downturn.Companies and brands that went with the flow of the boom-bust cycle by cutting ad spending -- as data suggest household and personal-care players did last year -- tended to lose more share to private labels both immediately and longer term.

Companies whose ad spending didn't vary according to economic cycles -- based on an analysis of Ad Age data on global ad spending -- also tended to increase their stock prices an average of 1.3 percentage points annually ahead of others from 1986 to 2006, said Mr. Steenkamp, who analyzed global results of 26 marketers across multiple industries.

'Takes courage'"Companies and categories that are able to turn a recession into an advantage are [those] going against economic trends," Mr. Steenkamp said. "Ultimately, it takes courage. But it pays off in share and in terms of the stock market."

About half the share lost to private labels in past recessions has never been recovered, he said.
A variety of factors likely played into last year's spending retreat by package-goods marketers, and some contend the U.S. measured-media numbers don't tell the whole story.

The pullback by U.S.-based marketers in the fourth quarter was likely prompted in part by the sudden strengthening of the dollar, which drained earnings from overseas almost overnight and spurred cuts in one of the only budgets that can be cut quickly: marketing. By contrast L'Oréal, a French company for which a stronger dollar boosted U.S. earnings in the fourth quarter, hiked media spending in the quarter.

TNS data showed only a 3.6% spending decline for personal-care marketers overall last year, according to an Information Resources Inc. presentation in March, vs. the 8.8% decline for the U.S.-based group covered by Bernstein. That suggests spending by foreign multinationals lifted results pulled down by U.S. companies.

The Goldman report showed some signs of strategic spending hikes in the fourth quarter. Procter & Gamble Co. -- and, to a lesser extent, Kimberly-Clark Corp. -- upped measured spending in paper categories facing the most erosion from private labels. And P&G hiked spending on laundry detergent, particularly on Gain, a midtier value brand that can benefit from trade-down but also is more vulnerable to private labels.

2009: The Year of One-to-One Marketing
By KIM T. GORDON
Posted: 2009-01-06 17:33:01

As we kick off 2009, one thing is crystal clear: We're entering an entirely new era for marketers. Let's call this the year for building relationships. Right now, prospects want to make every purchase a safe one. That means they'll rely on companies or brands they know and trust. Closing sales will require a stronger emphasis on tactics that let you relate to customers one to one. And it's never been more important to craft a set of effective letters that you can customize for individual prospects.

Writing a great letter takes a bit of time and know-how. Whether you use it to follow up a lead, close a hot prospect or introduce your products and services, a well-crafted letter will be one of your most powerful marketing tools in the new year.These six rules will help you write letters that motivate your best prospects:

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Rule 1. Set a Measurable GoalEvery good letter must be written to make something happen. Focus on that goal before you begin, and decide what your letter must contain to produce the desired result. Make reading your letter worthwhile for your prospect, and it will reward you by advancing the sales process. If you're sending letters just to provide prospects with more information, you're wasting your postage and opportunity to move prospects to the next level.

Rule 2. Have a Strong HookYour letter has to immediately grab the reader's interest or it'll be discarded as junk mail. Depending on the type of business you're in and what you're marketing, your hook can be a special offer or a lead communicating a unique benefit. When your letter follows a phone call, highlight the benefits your prospect desires in the first paragraph.

Rule 3. Convey a Unique MessageHave you ever received letters from competing companies with virtually identical offers? Chances are you tossed them because you couldn't tell one company from the other. Take a look at one of your old letters. If it could have been sent by any of your closest competitors, rethink your approach. The message, pricing and offers contained in your letter must be unique to your business and tie into your branding.

Rule 4. Keep the Reader in MindImagine you were face to face with your prospect, reading your letter aloud. Would you be comfortable, or would the tone be all wrong? Your letter is a one-to-one communication with a real person. Don't come on too strong or overpromise. Use simple, direct language, not flowery prose or impressive vocabulary. And because you won't really be face to face with your prospect, the look of your letter alone must convey your professionalism, so double-check for errors.

Rule 5. Write About "You the Customer"Great letters are directed outward. That means they stress what "you the customer" will get and not what "we the company" provide. Highlight benefits front and center, and use the body of your letter to describe the features. Then summarize the key benefit once again, and close with a call to action that gives the prospect a reason to move to the next step in your sales process.

Rule 6. Make Responding EasyNo matter what type of marketing letter you're writing, close by providing a clear and actionable next step. In some cases, the responsibility for that action--such as sending a written proposal or contract--will rest with you. When a special offer has been made, your letter should make it quick and easy for the prospect to take advantage of it via phone, e-mail and postal mail. The fewer hurdles your prospect must jump, the more likely you are to close the sale.

Kim T. Gordon is the "Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and a multifaceted marketing expert, speaker, author and media spokesperson. Over the past 26 years, she's helped millions of small-business owners increase their success through her company, National Marketing Federation Inc. Her latest book, Maximum Marketing, Minimum Dollars, is now available.
2009-01-06 17:23:04

Happy New Year! I Welcome 2009!

Looking Forward To A Great New Year!

Working Harder For You!