As I write this Wednesday afternoon Sept 24th 2008, the sky is falling. The Fed has proposed a 700 billion dollar bailout of our entire economy, and after initially being trumpeted as a brilliant idea last week, it's now facing rough opposition in the house. This is probably because polls like this Bloomberg/LA Times poll that says 55% of Americans say no American tax dollars should be spent in a bailout of banks even if it means sending the country in to a depression.  A Zogby poll taken over the weekend says 38% of Americans have confidence our leaders can solve the financial problems.  The stock market has been erratic and dropping most of the year. The alarms have been going off for months now. Worst stock market drop since the great depression! Worst Housing market since the great depression! Unemployment the highest it's been since 1981! Unfortunatly we couldn't get down to the great depression level on that.So what does that all mean to you the marketer or the guy who sells marketing services? Um I'm guessing it's not good. Maybe we should follow Chicken Little's lead

.

But maybe there's more to this. I once heard that in life whenever a negative is happening, a positive is right behind it. Let's look past the falling sky for that positive!

In a report released today TNS Media Intelligence says advertising is down for 2008 too. The biggest losers are Local Radio -7.5%, Newspapers at -7.4%, and Local TV -4.4%. I don't imagine any media sales people read this blog so let's focus on how that's a huge plus for us! If you advertise on radio or in the Newspaper and drop your budget by 5%, you're still increasing your presence. If you can maintain your current budget you will start to dominate your media exposure. Understand that even though unemployment is high, it's still only 6.1 percent. We were at 6% or higher from 1990-1994. And from 1979 till 1987 we were never below 6%. So well over 90% of people have a job. We've got a long way to go to match the Great Depression unemployment  rate of 25% These employed people still go out to eat, get new cars, and even buy Christmas presents. As a matter of fact despite the hard times, not only aren't people going to spend less on Christmas presents this year, they're expecting to spend 2.2% more. Although this article from today headlines that great news as "weak holiday forecast" So wait a second! People are going to spend more money this year on gifts, travel, dinning, etc and marketers are spending less. If I was a smart "bidness man" now would be the time to actually increase my ad budget and take advantage of my competitors fear! The marketplace is becoming quiet, as panic takes over the uninformed, and the obtuse. The knowing and astute are grabbing their microphones to take advantage of the muted marketers mistake and will not only make a killing this Holiday Season, but create a gap between themselves and their dimwitted rivals that they will savor for years to come!

I always want to hear feedback so call me at 843-324-5791 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

So earlier this week, we talked about how the world is changing at record speed, and how more people than ever are fast forwarding through TV spots, and how are we going to get our message to people in the future? Ask and you shall receive! This report from Harris Interactive says 48% of teens are interested in receiving marketing material via text. Now I'm 41 years and barely use text, and the report shows that interest in texting starts dropping quick with people over the age of 30. But with the young people leading the way, you can be sure of 2 things. Adults will learn to text more. Adults will like texting more. Now back to the teens for a second. 6 out of 10 say they're willing to help marketers target them with offers that make sense by providing their profile information! Over the age of 30 that drops to 2 out of 10. The next generation of adults believes that they can use technology in agreement with marketers to streamline their lives! Rather than have their shows interupted these people say send me the product info you think I'm interested in and I'll consider it. And you know what? As an older guy I too would appreciate the option to opt out of tampon and cereal commercials to just see the stuff that effects my life. The text market is wide open too. 75 Billion a month are sent and the only corporate advertising really being done is by Dominos pizza who send out specials. Start getting tech savvy, and start talking to your customers about the possibility of "hittin em up" with a text when you've got something of interest. Step 2 will be getting people who aren't your customers yet to share their number with you. But we'll get to that later. Let's launch a text campaign first and already be way out in front of our competition today. I hope these girls didn't just find out  about a sale going on at your competition!

To let me know you're thoughts you can text me (or if you're old just call me) 843-324-5791 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Nielsen who figures out how many Americans see a TV show, can now monitor how many ad's are being seen. They came out with a report today (9/18/08) that says on average of the people watching any given show 25% of them are fast forwarding through commercials. They expect by the end of the year it will be 30%! So how can you market your product if no one is watching the ads? Well the networks are trying to figure that out themselves because they need to sell spots! So their idea is to now sell product placement. Your favorite sitcom star walks in and says do you have a diet wild cherry pepsi? Or in a police drama the cops yell in their walkie talkies we can't keep up with the suspect, he's driving a dodge charger with the hemi! Laugh if you want but according to a June 12th report from TNS Media Intelligence 12 minutes 8 seconds per primetime hour is now sold to this new form of advertising called product placement. When combined with the ads they sold the average hour has over 27 minutes sold! It's too early to tell if this product placement will effect sales, but my gut says no. For the past 10 years or so Americans have been trained to notice false endorsements like the coke cups on the American Idol judges table. If it doesn't apear genuine people write it off. Even if this stuff did work, what about you the local advertiser? How do you get your landscaping business, or dry cleaner on local TV? So what will work on TV? Same thing that will work on radio or the internet, or newspaper, billboards or anyplace else! IF and this is a mighty big if. If you have a product or service that is worthy of attention, then you need an ad campaign that is worthy of your product. Damn that's a great line I just came up with! I'm TM'ing that right now! Back to our chat. The reason I put the IF is because attention grabbing ad campaigns are only succesful if they direct people to something they will want to return to and tell their friends about. I've had 2 bad experiences at IHOP. It's been about 5 years since I've been back despite some clever ads. On a side note probably the worst commercial ever was this 1969 IHOP spot. It's so bad I thought it was fake at first!

Please e-mail me a link to anything worse. Continuing now, if your product or service is ready an innovative commercial now more than ever will get the word out. I say now more than ever because in todays society people love to share things they discover. If they see a clever or funny spot they'll post it on youtube, or get an mp3 file of the audio, and e-mail it, or a jpeg of the billboard. The challange is doing something that isn't being done. If you're ready for a campaign like that call me at 843-324-5791 or e-mail me This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

I make my living off of my voice, and electronic media. However I love marketing in all of it's forms and get excited to see what's working in any medium. MRI Starch developed an engagement score to see which magazine ads first got peoples attention and then got got positive feedback. Here's 5 of the biggest winners.

Strong primary colors always perform well. Valuable health benefits are easy to understand so this scored well for the health industry which has an average score from readers of 65, Bayer recieved a 106.

Huge font eliminates one of readers biggest complaints of having to hunt for the advertisers name. A small dose of wry wit mixed with a visual pun, and an easy to rip/clip coupon scores BBB a 132! BTW 50% of readers actually used the coupon

MRI Starch says good ads direct the readers eye. This HP ad draws your eyes first to the headline, then to the product and then down to the copy. Final score 96.

Celebrities always help ads get more attention. Humor is also very powerful. This ad scored 112

Travelocity has created their own celebrity with the traveling gnome. They've put him in a humorous situation. MRI Starch research also finds that readers respond to being put in to some type of action. Also note how the gnomes hat directs your eye to the copy, reinforcing ad flow. Score 106 

I hope you found this print update interesting and if you're a marketing geek like me, exciting! Let me know what you think of this at 843-324-5791.

Kelly