The 3 Cs of Effective Marketing

This article from Site-Reference.com says Clarity, Consistency and Continuousness are the essential ingredients needed to make marketing effective.

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Modern Day Advertising

This month’s The New Yorker takes a look at how the art of the advertising pitch has evolved in this New Entertainment Economy and what its future looks like…

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Just Who Is Reading Blogs Anyway?

From the Center for Media Research and MediaPost.com:

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Age Gap in Blog Reading Changes News Consumption Pattern

According to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, relatively few Americans are familiar with the phenomenon of blogging, in which individuals post running narratives of their thoughts and observations on whatever interests them.

Although 75% of the U.S. public uses the Internet, only one in four Americans are either very familiar or somewhat familiar with blogs (the shortened form of the original “Web logs”). More than half, 56%, have no knowledge of them.

Familiarity With Blogs (% of respondents, Feb 25-27 2005
	Very familiar	Somewhat	Not too	Not at all
All US Adults	7%	19	18	56
Internet Users	9%	23	21	47
Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll

While blogging is wielding some influence in media and political circles, traditional news outlets are still the dominant sources of information for the American public

According to a December 2004 Gallup Poll, the percentage of Americans getting their news on a daily basis from the mainstream media is 51% for local television news, 44% for local newspapers, 39% for cable news networks, 36% for the nightly broadcast network news, and 21% for radio talk shows. By contrast, only 3% of Americans say they read Internet blogs every day, and just 2% read politics-focused blogs daily.

Blog readers are younger than the population at large. Although 17% of the public is aged 18 to 29, a quarter of all blog readers (those who read even occasionally) are in this age bracket. At the older extreme, 17% of Americans are 65 and older, but only 6% of blog readers are this old.

Age Distribution of American Blog Readers (% of respondents)
	Read blogs*	TotalNational Adults
Age 18 to 29	25%	17
Age 30 to 49	47	41
Age 50 to 64	22	25
Age 65+	6	17
Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll

*Blog readership is defined as reading blogs every day, a few times a week, a few times a month, or less often than that.

This age skew reflects both the younger demographic of the Internet-connected universe as well as a greater likelihood of young people on the Internet, compared with older Internet users, to gravitate toward blogs.

	Percentage of Americans who use the Internet	Percentage of Internet users who read blogs
Age 18 to 29	91%	44
Age 30 to 49	88	37
Age 50 to 64	75	34
Age 65+	33	28
Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll

The age gap in blog reading is particularly noteworthy because it is a complete reversal of the typical age pattern gap for news consumption. Gallup finds Americans’ use of all traditional news media to be positively correlated with age. (For instance, only 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds read a local paper every day, versus 61% of those 65 and older.)

Gallup finds no gender differences in blog readership, or according to party affiliation. There are slight differences by political outlook, as about a quarter of liberals (24%) say they read blogs at least monthly, compared with 15% of conservatives and 12% of moderates.

– All posts written by Chris Kennedy

Reconfiguring Big Media

Bigger doesn’t seem like the better operating mode for today’s largest media companies, as reported in this article from the WashingtonPost.com.

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Can and Will Apollo Take Off for VNU and Arbitron?

MediaPost provides an update regarding the status of the new Apollo project bringing ratings more into the portable digital age for both television and radio as well as potenially other new media forms of advertising. So far, Proctor & Gamble is the only big sign on for this $100 million development plan. BMW says its particularly well-suited as a concept for television but prefers the crawl before walk approach. VNU and Arbitron plans to announce the project’s status shortly. See what MediaPost has learned…

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New Clear Channel Initiatives Online

While Clear Channel is pursuing its “Less is More” reduced spot load strategy to help reduce tune out and increase spot value, it is also exploring new ways to attract revenues online. Read today’s article from the New York Daily News to see what Clear Channel has planned…

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Arbitron.com

Arbitron just released their “Radio Today 2005″ free report, available as a pdf download. Arbitron.com has many great resources to help give you more knowledge from actual diarykeepers. Read about “Radio Today” and see that radio usage remains media’s most pervasive choice, reaching 94% of Americans every week, who on average listen nearly 20 hours a week.

Of course, you might want to take a peak at the Joint Communications/Arbitron “What Women Want” series and refresh your memories…

– All posts written by Chris Kennedy

The Mass Media Market May Not Be Dead After All

Rance Crain, editor in chief of Advertising Age, says the mass market is not dead, it’s the weakness of creative. The idea vine has withered…read on…

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Hispanics Still Not Being Courted On The Web

According to AdAge, 81 of Fortune 100’s listed companies don’t have Spanish-language websites and the remaining 19 don’t have any useful Spanish-language content or navigation tools. Wow! Considering all the hype on the last 6 years about the rise in spending econmic power of the Hispanic community in the US, it seems like there must still be opportunities unexplored online. It’s a reminder to consider offering a translated version of your main site if you have a sizeable Hispanic community as part of your audience target.

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Top 10 Moments on MTV

The New York Daily News lists what they see as the top 10 moments on MTV — the vanguard of youth pop culture. These Top 10 lists are subjective — you may have a moment or two you think was excluded from the list. Made me think: if you are a Program Director in radio or TV, when was the last time you did this exercise for your own radio station, for your own channel? It doesn’t matter how long its been on the air — can you name 10 Top Moments?

And then the kicker: are you doing enough to create memorable moments for your audience?

– All posts written by Chris Kennedy