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Adotas: Alternative Media Spending Going Gangbusters

The sputtering economy has failed to stymie spending on alternative media, according to a report from PQ Media. In 2007, spending on alternative media – such as social networks, mobile and interactive advertising – grew by an eye-popping 22% to $73.43 billion in 2007 and it is expected to grow by 20.2% in 2008 to $88.24 billion.

Spending on alternative media – which is slated to represent 26.6% of total U.S. ad and marketing spending by 2012 — is expected to post compound annual growth of 17% in the 2007-2012 period, eventually reaching $160.82 billion.

“By 2012, we anticipate one out of every four dollars spent on advertising and marketing will be earmarked for alternative media,” said Patrick Quinn, president and CEO of PQ Media. “Alternative advertising and marketing media are driving a new media order that presents vast opportunities for industry stakeholders, but also key challenges for some of the fastest-growing digital media segments. Technological advances have led to critical changes in consumer behaviors and media usage patterns, which have pushed the advertising and marketing ecosystems into a seminal period of transition. Driven by these market forces, brand marketers are seeking new strategies to connect with consumers through engaging means in captive locations, while at the same time providing proof-of-performance metrics. This confluence of trends is fueling the migration of dollars to alternative media.”

PQ Media broke alternative media into 18 segments – 12 alternative ad segments and six alternative marketing segments. Twelve of the 18 grew more than 20% in 2007 and are projected to drive the growth over the next five years.

In order of projected growth, these segments are: consumer-generated media, mobile advertising, videogame advertising, online video advertising, word-of-mouth marketing, advergaming and webisodes, product placement, search and lead generation advertising, and digital out-of home media. The largest alternative media segments in 2007 were event sponsorships and marketing, search and lead generation, e-direct marketing, online classifieds and displays, local pay TV, and product placement.

A few key breakdowns from PQ Media’s report:

• Spending on alternative advertising, including online and mobile advertising and entertainment and digital out-of-home advertising, climbed 25.8% to $39.22 billion in 2007, and grew at a CAGR of 26.2% in the 2002-2007 period. Alternative advertising represented 17.7% of overall ad spending in 2007, up from a 7.0% share in 2002.
• Spending on online and mobile advertising, including search and lead generation, online classifieds and displays, e-media, online video and rich media, internet yellow pages, consumer-generated ads, and mobile advertising, rose 29.1% to $29.94 billion in 2007, and increased at a CAGR of 31.4% in the 2002-2007 period. Growth was driven by brand marketers shifting budgets out of traditional advertising to reach key demographics that have increased online and mobile usage due to improvements in online and wireless technology, particularly with wider adoption of broadband access.
• Spending on entertainment and digital out-of-home (OOH) advertising, including local pay TV, digital out-of-home media, video-on-demand (VOD), interactive TV (ITV), and digital video recorder (DVR) advertising, videogame and home video advertising, and satellite radio advertising, rose 16.2% to $9.28 billion in 2007, and climbed at a CAGR of 15.0% from 2002 to 2007. Spending was fueled by new ad insertion technologies, the pursuit of new ad platforms that reach young audiences; and the steady growth of local pay TV, satellite radio, and DVRs, subscribers.
• Spending on alternative marketing, including branded entertainment and interactive marketing, rose 17.9% to $34.21 billion in 2007, and posted a CAGR of 17.5% in the 2002-2007 period. Alternative marketing represented 14.5% of total marketing spend in 2007, up from 8.7% in 2002.
• Spending on branded entertainment marketing, including event sponsorship and marketing, paid product placement, and advergaming and webisodes, rose 14.7% to $22.30 billion in 2007, and climbed at a CAGR of 13.4% from 2002 to 2007. Growth was driven by deployment of media strategies aimed at being more interactive and entertaining than traditional media, as well as to engage target audiences in locations that are not impacted by ad-skipping technology.
• Spending on interactive marketing, including e-direct marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, and e-custom publishing, rose 24.4% to $11.91 billion in 2007, and climbed at a CAGR of 28.6% from 2002 to 2007. Spending was driven by strong gains in segments that reach affluent and influential consumers with focused messages that are either opted-in to or come from very trusted sources.

Adotas  » Alternative Media Spending Going Gangbusters

I can't believe more people aren't talking about Google Ad Manager

This is groundbreaking.  This is revolutionary.  On Techmeme there are only a few links.  Rich media ad serving from Google:

http://www.google.com/support/admanager/publisher/bin/topic.py?topic=13161

They are changing the game, yet again.  Just as Google Analytics did.  They are going to put many of the niche ad serving players in a world of hurt. I have a sneaking suspicion that a minority of users are going to find alternative uses for this; widgets, sound clips, movie trailers. If any Googlers are out there, please send me an invite. 

"Tribes" and the "Seinfeld Curve". Seth Godin put it better than I could.

I am in love with this speech Seth Godin gave.  These excerpts explain beautifully WHY the NIN model works, and in short order.

Important to keep a dialogue:

…The next one is my biggest one, and what started me 
down this whole path which is, if I asked you for the 
name and address of your 50,000 best customers, 
could you give it to me? Do you have any clue? Then 
what happens every day is you guys go to a singles bar 
and you walk up to the first person you meet and 
propose marriage and if that person won’t marry you, 
you walk down the singles bar to every single person 
until someone says I do. Thats a stupid way to get 
married. A better way to get married is to go on a date. 
If it goes well, go on another date. Wait to tell them 
on the third before you tell them you’re out on parole. 
(laughter) Then you meet their parents, they me your 
parents, you get engage, you get married. Permission is 
the act of delivery. Anticipated, personal, and relevant 
messages to people who want to get them. I have every 
record Ricky Lee Jones has ever made including the 
boot legs that she sells. Rick Lee Jones should know 
who I am! (laughter) I have bought many of them 
(pause) well her agents, her people [should know who 
I am]. I’ve bought many of them directly from her site. 
I desperately want Ricky Lee to drop me a note telling 
me when she is going to be in town. I want her to ask 
me, “should I do a duets album with Willie Nelson, or 
should I do one with Bruce Springsteen?”. I want to 
have these interactions. And I want her to say, “I’m 
making another bootleg, but not until I get 10,000
people to buy it as patrons before I make it”. Because 
I’d sign up. I’d buy five if it would help, but she doesn’t 
know who I am. She doesn’t know who I am, she 
never talks to me. And then every once in a while her 
record label tries to yell at me, but I’m not listening 
because they’re yelling at me in a place where I’m not 
paying attention. And so we look at these phrases, 
“paying attention”. That’s what you’ve wanted people 
to do all along. “Pay attention to this artist”. Paying is 
a weird word isn’t it? You want me to pay you 
something-my attention. And if you’re wrong, I get 
nothing back. I had to listen to the Backstreet 
Boys…AHH! I want those three minutes back. So, it’s 
a weird relationship. 

 The “tribal” concept of fanbases: 

The next idea is this idea of liking. There is a lot of music I like. There is not so much music I love. They didn’t call the show, “I Like Lucy”, they called it “I Love Lucy”. And the reason is you only talk about stuff you love, you only spread stuff you love. You find a band you really love, you’re forcing the CD on other people, “you gotta hear this!”. We gotta stop making music people like. There is an infinite amount of music people like. No one will ever go out of the way to hear, to pay for, music they like…back to this tribal thing. It’s really important to people to feel like they are part of that tribe, to feel that adrenaline. We are willing to pay money, we’re willing to go through huge hoops, trampled to death in Cincinnati if necessary, in order to be in the environment where we feel that’s going on.  

Then “The Seinfeld Curve” 

The next thing is what I call the Seinfeld curve. The 
Seinfeld curve shows us Jerry’s life. If you like Jerry 
Seinfeld you can watch him on television, for free, in 
any city in the world two or three times a day. Or, you 
could pay $200 to go see him in Vegas. But there is no 
$4 option for Jerry Seinfeld. This is death. You can’t 
make any money in here. Because if you’re not scarce 
I’m not going to pay for it because I can get if for free. 
And one of the realities that the music industry is 
going to have to accept is this curve now exists for you. 
That for everybody under eighteen years old, it’s either 
free or it’s something I really want and I’m willing to 
pay for it. There is nothing in the center-it’s going 
away really fast.  

Take these concepts together and its obvious why the NIN model works.  Create choice, cater to those who love you, enable the tribe to continue engagement throughout by creating and mixing your music.  In the end, win them as lifelong subscribers who are apt to come back and check out what’s next…