According to a recent UBA Key Facts report, investments in TV have grown by 15.1%, which accounts for 42.7% of all investments. Radio – 13.3% of total investment – grew by 6.5%. Newspapers are also doing far better than last year, with a growth of 14.2%, and magazines are doing less badly than last year (-3.3% versus -4.7%). Free press has grown by 4.4%. Investments in billboarding grew by 2.2%.
So despite all the doom scenarios, the Internet has not usurped the classic off-line channels: they remain part of the media mix. That mix is becoming increasingly complex and smaller advertisers have to make choices in order to demand their share of the attention.
In other words, advertising pressure is growing.
The number of registrations on the Robinson and other lists and the success of Ad Blockers bear witness to the fact that more and more consumers are finding this irritating. Funnily enough, for many advertisers and media channels this is ringing the wrong bell. If push comes to shove, they are ready to punish people who are not interested in their message and are making steadily more aggressive attempts at targeting people. What bothers me most, though – and this really makes my creative heart bleed – is the quality of those messages.
The amount of rubbish and downright poor advertising is really alarming.
It’s as if media investments are being compensated for with cuts in concept and production expenditure. Let’s face it, making a clip or a spot… how difficult can it be, can’t we just do it ourselves?
It’s not so much the quantity but the quality of the advertising that scares consumers off and do-it-yourselfers are ruining our business!
Our content marketing, the basis of the inbound philosophy, is suffering from the same malaise. After all, the social media channels have to be fed, blogs have to be written, white papers, webpages, calls to action, landing pages… so you’d better get writing!
Marketing is an art, though, and content marketing is a speciality, dear Mr Homebrew. The success of your content depends on the quality and relevance not the frequency.
We have to dispel the myth that anything goes and content marketing is a fast, cheap form of advertising.
If you don’t invest in copywriters, social media specialists, production, graphic support, analysis tools or even a good content marketing plan, you might as well stick to evening advertising on TV. If you can’t afford quantity, then invest in quality and don’t forget that a good idea is still the basis of any marketing success.
