If You Want The Cheapest Cost Per Thousand Viewers Then Your Advertising Should Go Outdoors, But if You Want to Spend The Most For A Captive Audience Then Cinema Is Your Ticket

And although different countries may have different rankings for various media, on average in 54 countries cinema remains the most expensive spend per thousand adults at $59.43, more than three times more expensive than the second high media spend, the Internet at $16.38. Cinema can charge so high because its audience is captive. There’s no getting up to put the tea kettle or coffee on, there’s no reading the newspaper or chatting with your friends, once you are in the cinema and the lights darken you’re hooked to the screen.

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Can Newspapers Maintain Their 20% Plus Margins in 2006 On Print Ad Revenue That Could Actually Decline By 1.5%? The Answer May Rest On The Advertising Opportunities Their Own Web Sites Provide.
If a publisher takes as a basic premise that the trends of past years will continue in 2006 – that print advertising growth will be less than 5% -- the bears say it will actually drop 1.5% and fear that is too optimistic -- and that Internet advertising will grow from 20-30%, is there any way to continue the usual 20% plus margins?

Before Long the UKs TV Magazines Will Need to List Broadband TV Programming From Several Vendors, But There Will Be No Schedules – Welcome to Watch What You Like When You Want
BT, the largest British telephone company, is teaming with Philips and Microsoft, to turn itself also into a television company next year offering 30 digital terrestrial channels via aerial reception plus a video on demand library and a “catch-up” service covering the past seven days delivered via broadband. Not to be outdone, satellite broadcaster BSkyB is paying £211 million for broadband supplier Easynet that puts the company, 37.2% owned by News Corporation, into the telecom and broadband business.

As the Price of Newsprint Increases the Size of a Newspaper’s Page Narrows Or Its Paper Thickness is Reduced; The Next Step Is To Take The Paper Out of Newspaper
Seldom does a day pass that some major newspaper like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal doesn’t announce that it is narrowing the width of its pages, or reducing its paper weight thickness, to save on newsprint costs. It’s a similar scenario to 10 years ago when newsprint reached its price peak.

The London Bombings Prove that Delivery of Video Via Broadband Is A Powerful Reason to Visit Internet News Sites
CNN.com last month made video available for free on the advertising model, reversing its $4.95 monthly subscription model. Three weeks later it had its first really big international breaking news story -- the London bombings -- and CNN said it served more than 3.8 million videos on the first day.

In Europe Mobile Phone Penetration is Approaching Saturation But, Like Japan, Users Are Mostly Interested In Communicating With One Another and Not Downloading Premium Services
The really good news is that mobile phones usage in Europe Is around 80% with the UK and Italy at saturation point. The bad news for media vendors and phone operators is that customers don’t seem very interested in the premium services on offer. What they really want their phones for are to, well, talk and communicate with one another.

Magazines are the third most expensive, $11.14; followed by newspapers, $9.23; TV, $7.06; radio ($6.32) and outdoor at $5.37.

Cinema is set to increase its costs by 9.1%, according to the survey, and Internet costs will increase by 5.9%. Internet demand is driven by the increased broadband take-up. Internet advertising is an example of the survival of the fittest, with the most successful sites continually running out of sales inventory and increasing rates accordingly.

Merrill Lynch says, however, there is the beginning of a backlash to the sharp increase in search advertising during Q4, 2005. “A couple of Internet advertisers had been hurt by higher keyword pricing in the fourth quarter,” according to analyst Lauren Rich Fine. Although Google instituted higher minimum bids, she believes that supply and demand economics are more likely at play – more marketers going after the same specific categories. But it is a sign that pricing sensitivities are creeping into the keyword search model, but again those with the most to spend will always be able to outbid the small fry.

The developing countries – Eastern Europe, Latin America, and China in particular, are seeing advertising price increases for all media by more than inflation, but in the more mature markets of Europe and the US the rises are expected to fall under inflation.

The US, the world’s largest advertising market, has the world’s cheapest newspaper, magazine and outdoor prices, but the world’s highest TV and Internet costs, according to the survey.

Japan, the world’s second largest advertising market, has the world’s highest radio costs. TV advertising costs in China are set to increase 20.1% per 1000 adults because of rising costs and lower ratings.

Asia has the lowest cost of cinema advertising, with the exception of Hong Kong, which has the fourth most expensive cinema costs in the world.

Where podcasting fits into this is anyone’s guess, but eMarketeer says that spending on podcast advertising will reach $80 million this year in the US and will reach $300 million by 2010 when the audience could be around 50 million.

What the Initiative survey does not track is the cost of viral advertising – basically word of mouth on something that catches people’s attention. And there is a definite trend in the US to increasing word of mouth advertising because it is considered the most cost effective advertising of all.

According to Blackfriars Communications, senior marketing executives are increasingly taking the view that traditional media outlets do not provide real value for money. Non-traditional advertising such as word of mouth, buzz, and viral advertising -- whatever you want to call it -- are becoming the flavors of the day.

Blackfriars says that at the end of 2004 non-traditional as spending was around 8%. A year later it was 14.5%.

The survey also discovered that that more and more executives are not satisfied with their company's marketing. Almost a quarter of respondents said that they were not very satisfied or not at all satisfied with their marketing efforts, and that is the worst result in two years.

Blackfriars had forecast previously the overall marketing spend in 2006 would increase by 13% which, if that held, would mean there would be enough for the usual traditional media spend plus viral campaigns. But Blackfriars now says that 2006 apparently has gotten off to a dismal start with marketing budgets at their lowest level since 2003 and advertising hit accordingly.

"Rising costs and economic uncertainty have put the brakes on traditional marketing spending, forcing executives to look for new ways to attract customers," said Carl Howe, a Blackfriars senior executive. "Advertising has hit a one-year low as a percentage of the marketing budget, and fully half of the companies we interviewed are increasing their investments in non-traditional marketing techniques such as word of mouth, buzz marketing, and viral marketing."

So given all of this advertising competition with the trend away from traditional outlets it is probably just as well that the Newspaper Association of America has invested $50 million in preparing an ad campaign to boost newspapers as “a destination, not a distraction.” Ads aimed at media planners and buyers will run in trade magazines and newspapers across the country.