Toyota wins Sappi Print Media Efficiency Award at Euro Effies

At the Euro Effies 2006 competition Toyota was awarded with the Sappi Print Media Efficiency Award. This Award honours Effie Winners that have spent at least 40% of their budget on print media. This is a great way to support and also to demonstrate the advertising value of print. The Toyota case is on strengthening the "environmentally friendly" character of the brand. Eighty percent of the total budget was allocated to print media that reached the opinion leaders in Europe. The campaign generated a return of € 2.58 for every € 1 spent and increased the awareness of Toyota as an environmental leader to 61% (of people having seen the ad).

Run or die?

Kyoo Kim, vice president sales at U.S.-based msnbc.com at the Beyond the Printed Word Conference: "Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up knowing it must run faster than the fastest lion or be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up knowing it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or starve. So it doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up you'd better be running." But when you can not beat your competitor you join them! This years Conference organised by Ifra dealt with the integration of the digital world in the newspaper publishing world. It put special emphasis on Web 2.0 applications that make services, interactivity and user content standard.

Dual business model for newspapers - 2

Ifra, one of the world's leading organisations for newspaper and media publishing announced the winners of the XMA Cross Media Awards. These Awards are honouring new and successful trends and practices in multiple-media sports coverage. Nine prizes were awarded in three categories, depending on the circulation. Winners include The Guardian, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, New York Times and titles from Germany, Argentina, Spain, Croatia and Belgium.

Consumers spend more time online and in front of TV

For the first time consumers in Europe are spending more time online than reading magazines and newspapers. Research shows that consumers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are devoting more time online (4 hours/week) and watching TV ( 12 hours/week). Time spend on reading print remains at 3 hours/week. These data will force marketers to rethink communication strategies.

Surround Sound Media

A recent study of Marketing Evolution (USA) reinforces the idea that media can be leveraged in such a way that the effect of combined media is greater than what any one medium can produce. This is called Surround Sound Marketing, although Surround Sound Media would probably be a more precise description. Magazines turned out to work well with other media and add greater value when used in synergy with television and online advertising. Magazines were typically under-leveraged in the media mix. The strong performance could be attributed to:

• Message content

• Targetting

• Engagement with magazine advertising

The study was performed on cross-media accountability data from 20 recent studies.

Dual business model for newspapers

The August issue of The Economist deals with the effects of the fading role of newspapers. Newspapers are loosing readership, spent less on journalists, built business on-line and are investing in free dailies. Will democracy not loose an important voice that can hold politicians accountable? Can the Internet, citizen journalism and bloggers take over that role?

A digital future till 2015

The Museum of Media History produced a view of the impact of the internet on newspapers and media consumption in general. The short movie shows in a dramatic way the impact of technology on the gathering, making and distribution of the news.

Magazines stick

Research among 30 Fortune Top 200 companies has indicated that 47% of their advertising campaigns didn't work. Which is estimated at $112 billion wasted per year in the USA. Most of these campaigns lack in media optimization, on average campaigns could increase their effectiveness with 35%. Magazines are found to be a consistently successful part of the media mix.

Procter & Gamble to shift budgets

Procter & Gamble announced last week that it would shift budgets from TV to Print media. Already in the first half of 2006 budget for TV was reduced to 69.3%(-2.9%) print media increased to 28.2% (+3.5%). Internet remains at a small percentage of total spendings: 1.4%. This move is part of a strategy that gives more attention to the ROI of media investments. P&G' competitor Unilever also cut TV investments last year in favour of Print. This year that situation has been reversed.

Masters in Print

A week ago I presented to a group of printers in Vienna. They were representatives of the new generation of printers, most of them were working in a family-based business and will take over in the years to come. The challenges for the industry are huge. Technological improvements, the increasing importance of software, the challenges of low cost foreign printers and of other advertising media. My presentation focussed on the shifts of advertising budgets to the various media and implications for the printing industry. When you would like to read the presentation please let me know on info@fryskbiz.com