Shaping the Future of the Newspaper Blog - Advertising

FT launches global campaign targeting corporate subscribers

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:24:02 -0600

Following its recent creation of print and digital circulation metrics and its collaboration with U.S media monitoring service provider BurrellesLuce, the Financial Times is launching a global press campaign targeting business subscribers, MarketingWeek.co.uk reported today.

The global press campaign launched today under the tagline, "Some tools aren't a luxury." It is designed to boost corporate subscriptions by showing off the financial daily as an essential business tool companies cannot live without.

Image: Mediaweek.co.uk

UK ad authority expands control to social networks, corporate sites & mobile apps

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:36:58 -0600

The UK-based Advertising Standards Authority will be expanding control to corporate websites, social networks and mobile applications from March 2011, the Financial Times reports. The ASA will have the right to ask that paid-for links leading to banned ads be removed and will be able to include ads announcing that certain advertisers are not complying with regulations, according to MediaGuardian.

The new guidelines will permit the ASA to give ads on sites like YouTube and Facebook the same attention as ads on TV, radio or in newspapers. Google is supplying the ASA with £200,000 funds for the extension and the rest will come from the 0.1 percent voluntary levy on paid-for ads, MediaGuardian explained.

Deseret News to restructure, coordinate operations

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:29:24 -0600

Considering the major shift of readers from traditional news sources to digital media, changes were announced today at Utah's longest publishing daily, Deseret News. The U.S. newspaper will reduce its newsroom staff numbers by nearly half and introduce new strategic initiatives to serve massive audiences globally, TheSaltLakeTribune.com reported today.

Like many other newspapers, Utah's second largest daily faced a difficult choice - to either reduce staff and reinvent itself or to stop publishing. The newspaper chose the former; and despite declining ad revenues, the newspaper's readership showed an increase of 20 percent in 2009, the highest growth rate experienced by any newspaper in the country, according to a blog post by the newspaper's editorial page editor, Jay Evensen.

Metro sets up team to create its first global branding campaign

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:18:54 -0600

Metro International will not work with a creative agency on its first global branding campaign and has instead hired a brand team led by Mattias Frodlund, a freelancer previously working for Leo Burnett, Media & Marketing reported last week.

In a press release, Metro International CEO Per Mikael Jensen said the company's previous goal was to "establish Metro as the world's largest global newspaper." The next step"is building Metro into one global premium brand, admired and respected by readers as well as advertisers," global marketing director Christian Quarles added.

Publishers try out Groupon-like daily deals

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:12:45 -0600

Groupon launched just under two years ago, and now publishers are trying out the same concept on their digital properties in order to forge new digital revenue streams. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune last week released its first STeal, under which it offers an exclusive deal from a local business each day, MinnPost.com reported yesterday.

"If enough people buy, everyone gets the deal. Then you can print, redeem, repeat," the STeals page explains. The Star Tribune is just the latest to experiment with daily deals - so far the Washington Post, Zagat, Open Table, the SF Gate, Yelp, Gilt Group, and more have also done so, YipIt Blog reported. And, although STeals will be a small part of the Star Tribune's digital revenues, it is a promising new revenue stream that has long-term potential.

Most time-shifting TV viewers skip advertisements

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:19:19 -0600

Although television continues to be advertising's most memorable form, 86 percent of UK viewers using a digital video recorder to watch time-shifted shows skip through the ads, research published yesterday by YouGov for Deloitte has found. Shorter breaks in advertising would lead to more ad-watching, 48 percent of respondents said, MediaGuardian reported.

Meanwhile, digital and personal TV video recorders has led to more television watching, the report found. The research was conducted for the MediaGuardian Edinburgh international television festival, which begins Friday.

Image: Mahmoud.M's flickr photostream

Monster completes acquisition of HotJobs

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:33:51 -0600

Global online recruiting site Monster has completed its acquisition of Yahoo!'s HotJobs for $225 million (£145 million), Recruiter reported.

Monster also inked a three-year commercial traffic agreement with Yahoo!. According to the deal, Monster will become Yahoo!'s provider of career content and will pay $20 million to $31 million a year to Yahoo! for the redirected traffic, Boston Herald reported.

News Corp. to fuse Fox Audience Network with MySpace

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:16:24 -0600

News Corp. will integrate its online advertising network, Fox Audience Network, with MySpace, in order to "utilize its services to further drive MySpace's revenue efforts and to play a key part of the site's planned re-launch later this year," the media conglomerate's Jon Miller said yesterday, paidContent reported.

The decision to combine FAN's team and technology with the social media site changes News Corp.'s previous decision to spin out FAN into another unit under Bain, the article explained. FAN sells targeted ads across News Corp.-owned online platforms, as well as on the sites of third-party publishers.

VSS: Newspaper industry to stabilise, then grow in 2014

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:55:12 -0600

The declines in newspaper spending are expected to stabilise in 2013, and the industry is slated for growth in 2014, according to forecasts by Veronis Suhler Stevenson Communications Industry, a private equity firm specialising in media business and marketing services for the year 2004-2014, Editor & Publisher reported.

As print circulations decline, retail, national and classified advertisers will continue to invest interests in harnessing the potential reach of digital media platforms "to target audiences and improve return on investment." The report further stated that "weekly newspapers are no longer insulated from the migration of users and advertisers to the Web," and total industry spending is expected to fall by 9.5 percent this year, including decline in dailies by 10.6 percent, weeklies by 7.1 percent and digital platforms by 1.1 percent.

Study: Internet users dislike online ads

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:05:15 -0600

Only 17 percent of Internet users find online advertising to be appealing and most people considered it to be "intrusive, repetitive, unappealing and cheap," a study conducted by Connect Insight revealed, NewMediaAge reported today.

However, younger audiences are more willing to accept online ads as 24 percent of the 16-to 34-year-olds do think this type of advertising is appealing. Nonetheless, 50 percent of those over 55 years old said they avoid websites where ads would pop up and "interrupt their online activities," NewMediaAge explained.

Photo source: Physorg.com

Apple to shutter Quattro and focus on iAd

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:49:56 -0600

Apple announced yesterday it will shutter its Quattro Wireless Network next month, and begin focusing its mobile advertising efforts on mobile ad network iAd, paidContent reported. On Sept. 30, "we will support ads exclusively for the iAd Network," created for the iPhone and iPod, the announcement stated.

Apple bought the Quattro ad network earlier this year for an estimated US$275 million. On its quattrowireless.com website, only a message remains, stating "We believe iAd is the best mobile ad network in the world, and starting next month we're going to focus all of our resources on the iAd advertising platform. We are no longer accepting new campaigns for the Quattro Wireless Network, and we will soon begin winding down existing campaigns."

Image: iAd for the Nissan Leaf, via YouTube

News of the World plans to implement paywall in October

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:52:52 -0600

News International's News of the World plans to move its content behind a paywall beginning in October, with the company's tabloid The Sun set to follow, MarketingWeek.co.uk reported today.

Following the recent implementation of The Times' paywall on July 2, the move by the News International group is an extension of its subscription model approach.

Study: Facebook expected to gain £1 billion in ad revenue next year

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:39:55 -0600

Facebook is expected to bring in £1.13 billion in ad revenue in 2011, while MySpace's ad revenue is forecast to drop 14 percent, according to a new report from eMarketer, MediaGuardian reported.

Facebook has more than 500 million global users now, which has left one-time social networking leader MySpace far behind. This year, its ad revenue is expected to reach $1.285 billion, or £824 million, compared to MySpace's $347 million.

Twitter hires Facebook and Yelp veterans as first two ad salespeople

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:32:11 -0600

In an attempt to ramp up its advertising model, Twitter has hired two employees to sell ads, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries reported today for Wall Street Journal Blogs.

The microblogging site has hired Amanda Levy, the first ad saleswoman for review site Yelp, and Dan Coughlin, former director of media sales at Facebook. Levy will be Twitter's sales director in the Western region, while Coughlin will be sales director for the East. In an e-mailed statement, Twitter's chief operating officer, Dick Costolo stated that the company is "putting together a top-flight sales team as we begin to open our Promoted Suite of products to more companies," according to the WSJ.

Job ads in Australia on the rise

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:39:36 -0600

Newspaper job advertisements in Australia, including online and print, were up 1.3 percent in July, according to the latest data by ANZ Banking Group, the Australian reported.

The total number of advertisements increased to an average of 171,685 per week, which made up a 36.1 percent annual rise.