13: Outbound or Push Communication Delivery Systems
"Outbound" messaging is a category that includes any communication initiated by the marketer to a prospect or customer. Traditionally, outbound messaging has constituted the majority of seller-customer communications, and are classified as advertising, promotion, direct marketing, or public relations. The author disclaims that his treatment of the topic will be superficial, and refers the readers to other sources (in general, nothing specific) for more detailed information.
The author pauses to visit the notion of advertising. Conventionally, it was defined as any messaging about a given brand that the marketer paid another party to distribute. However, three classes of messages were considered distinct: if the message contained a promotional offer or incentive, it is considered to be sales promotion; if it was delivered directly to an individual or small market segment, it is considered to be direct marketing; and if the distributor exercised editorial discretion over the content of message, it is considered to be public relations.
The use of media for advertising has evolved significantly in the twentieth century, and has rapidly expanded in the past few decades, with the emergence of new media forms driven primarily by technological advancement. This has significantly changed the game for marketers, who must revisit their approach to traditional media and invent strategies for exploiting the new media in order to be effective in reaching their target markets.
TELEVISION
The television medium has long been appealing to marketers and consumers alike because of its multisensory presentation capabilities. The author suggests that, as a selling medium, only personal selling has been shown to be more effective in generating a response to a commercial message. Additionally, the medium reaches a very large audience base and, while the cost of television advertising is high, it is also very efficient in terms of the cost per impression (commonly referred to as the CPM, or cost per mil [thousand] persons reached).
In the past ten years, audiences have decreased - and meanwhile, costs have increased - but statistics show that the percentage of ad spend on television advertising has remained consistent (around 29% of budget)
"National" television refers to the traditional broadcast television networks, and also applies to cable television channels that reach a national audience, though the distinction is losing its significance as the vast majority of consumers receive both channels via a cable television service (and even "cable" is no longer an accurate moniker, given that programming may be received via satellite). Regardless, national networks are distinguished from local television, which is provided in a limited geographic area only - although, due to the syndication model, many "local" networks are affiliates of national networks that broadcast a mix of national and local programming.
From a marketing perspective, the difference is in the reach (how broad an audience a given channel will reach) and the process of negotiation (whether the advertising must be bought from), as the programming and associated commercials may be managed by a blend of national network, local channel, and program syndicator (the creator of a "show", who often retains some of the commercial time)
The advantage of reach and impact have been mentioned, and the author elaborates a bit more on them. Other advantages include its intrusiveness (the ability to inflict messaging on an audience that may not have sought it), the ability to segment by audience demographics (given the program and/or time of day).
The author also elaborates on the unfavorable trend that increases cost-per-impression: over the past ten years, audiences have decreased by 50% whereas costs have increased by 40%, which makes television a less cost-effective way to reach an audience (though it still represents significant value.)
The author notes that product placement has increased dramatically in television. It was once an experimental practice thought to have little value - but it is not as susceptible to avoidance as standard commercials (the consumer can't skip past a product image or mention in a dramatic scene in the same way they can skip a commercial for a product). While he's on the subject, he also notes that placement is also occurring in movies, video games, music videos, and other video entertainment formats. Placement is a growing practice, and it's not unusual for production companies to have a staff to manage placement, and are willing to negotiate with advertisers regarding the nature of the placement - an advertiser may pay one price to have the product on set, another to have it in the foreground (handled or used by the characters), or even mentioned in dialog.
(EN: The use of branded products in entertainment is considerably more involved than this - before paid placement, any mention of a brand in entertainment medium was considered P.R., and lawsuits were filed when brands were depicted in unflattering ways.)
RADIO
Traditionally, radio has been a local medium. Even though major corporations attempted to model radio on television networking, they lacked the ability to effectively push a central signal to multiple stations, and the cost of production for audio has been low enough that centralized programming provided no significant cost advantages, though some radio programming is syndicated and/or rebroadcast. Even so, syndicated or national programming constitutes less than 5% of all radio ad spending in recent years, so the notion of a national market is nto considered to be significant.
It's noted that, unlike television, radio advertising revenues have increased in the past ten years, and that the medium remains popular with local businesses due to its local reach and the affordable cost of advertising, as compared to television. Neither has the audience of radio shown any significant decrease in recent years, as has the audience of television.
As a medium, radio stations tend to appeal to market segments based on their interest in the station format, and there are fairly extensive studies on the mind-set and motivation of listeners to various formats, which enables the marketer to target a specific market in a given geographic area.
Advertisers can also target specific time slots to accommodate usage patterns or achieve better results (the example given is of a fast-food restaurant that would do radio spots for specific foods at specific times of day, such as breakfast promos in the morning, to capitalize on immediate interest.)
Because radio is an early "mobile" format, it has a benefit of immediacy - in the previous example, an ad for a quick meal will garner faster response from a listener who is already in his car on the drive to work than it would if it were advertised on television.
In this sense, radio is primarily a background medium - individuals are doing something else while they are listening. Most often, radio listeners are driving, and radio is often played as audio carpet to cover background noises in retail locations such as grocery stores.
One drawback is short program length, which encourages customers to be fickle. While a television show may be an hour or more in length, radio listeners may be engaged only for the length of a three-minute song, and are fickle. Changing stations to avoid advertising is so common that many radios were build with preset buttons to facilitate this behavior.
Additionally, "clutter" (the ratio of advertising to programming) has increased steadily in recent years, such that advertising on some radio stations consumes 20% or more of all airtime, which tends to drive consumers away from radio. One of the primary selling points of subscription-based radio services (satellite radio) was the promise of commercial-free programming. While the author cites no hard numbers, be suggests that satellite radio subscriptions have "increased significantly in recent years."
(EN: The author does not mention a few other factors that pose significant threats to radio, such as improvements in personal audio players, which were previously limited in content by the capacity of a recorded device, and the increasing use of "canned" mastic rather than live radio in stores, newer vehicles come with MP3 player integration and a trial subscription to satellite radio, etc. - the listenership of traditional radio is winnowing)
The author notes that spending on radio has increased dramatically but, at the same time, the number of radio stations nationwide has declined, which means that the problem of clutter has gotten much worse - given the low tolerance for advertising in this medium, and the increasing availability of alternatives to commercial radio, the author predicts "long term troubles" for radio as a marketing medium.
MAGAZINES
Magazines are read by subscribers (87%) as well as those who buy off-the-rack (13%), though both are in decline. Over a five-year period, subscriptions dropped by 0.3% per year, whereas single-copy sales decreased at 4.3% per year.
The author contrasts consumption patterns in media: consumers spend about 16 minutes per day reading, 85 minutes on the Internet, and 265 minutes watching television. It's also noted that the consumption pattern for magazines has trended toward scanning behavior - perusing rather than reading cover-to-cover. Also, the number of magazines has decreased - there were over 9,300 magazines published in 1999, as compared to 6,800 magazines in 2008. This pertains to consumer magazines only, and does not include roughly 12,000 business-to-business magazines. (EN: The usage of trade publications is significantly different, so it's well that the author separates the two.)
Even so, magazines are still a very important part of the U.S. media mix for both national and local advertisers. In 2005, magazines accounted for 11% of advertising dollars, and is projected to grow at a slow but steady rate.
The value of a magazine to marketing is in its ability to focus on a narrow target audience. Newspapers saturate a geographic area, and reach a large and diverse audience - magazines have a smaller and more geographically dispersed audience, but the audience is more homogeneous in lifestyles, interests, activities, and attitudes. There are a few exceptions, namely general interest magazines (such as TV Guide, Readers' Digest, and People) have a broader appeal.
Another advantage of magazines is longevity and reach. Today's newspaper is tomorrow's fish-wrapper, but magazines may be held for years and used as reference. Magazines are also often read by more than one member of a household, and are shared or passed along to others, greatly increasing their reach beyond the subscription base.
(EN: significant advantages that the author fails to mention is that magazines are regarded as being more credible than most other media, and that esteem holds for advertising as well as editorial copy. Also, people who read magazines have been found to be more influential in their personal networks than consumers of other media, which gains valuable referrals.)
On the downside, magazines are often cluttered with advertisement (a recent study indicated magazine content is 47% advertising), though consumers find this less objectionable. Also, there is the issue of lead time for advertising: digital prepress has not done much to make the publication process more efficient, and many magazines still require content, including advertising, to be set many months ahead of the publication date.
The Internet has been a major factor in the way marketers use magazines. Most magazines have companion Web sites that promote circulation, or provide ancillary resources - and some magazines are transitioning from a print format to an Internet-only publishing model. (EN: This is far more common with trade publications, especially the magazines that professional associations distribute, but has also become common for magazines targeting heavy internet users, particularly teen girls.)
The author also notes that there is a growing trend in custom publishing - companies that publish their own magazines and Web sites that look like general-interest magazines, and contain magazine-like content, but are largely promotional vehicles. One example is "Food and Family" magazine, which is published by Kraft to promote its brands - and which has one of the largest circulations in the United States. Another is Chrysler magazine, published by the auto manufacturer and distributed to drivers who've purchased its vehicles (as a way of keeping in touch for the next sale).
NEWSPAPERS
Newspapers are predominately a local advertising medium that target a specific geographic areas. Studies suggest that newspapers persist to satisfy consumer demand for local information that is not available from other media, and further suggest that as much as 60% of the audience remarks that they seek out advertising in their local papers (schedules for movies and entertainment events, sales events at local merchandise, classified advertising, etc.)
Several newspapers exist that are either national by intent (USA Today), or because their coverage of a given topic is appealing outside their local area (The Wall Street Journal for finance, the Washington Post for politics, the new York Times for culture.)
As of 2006, there remain 1,460 daily newspapers and 6,700 weekly ones, and readership has declined in the past several years, the remaining audience is substantial (about 49.9% of the population claims to read a newspaper at least once a week), and it is suggested that the remaining audience is comprised of individuals who have higher than average educational background and income and are older.
Newspapers are largely popular advertising venues for local businesses, as they carry greater clout in the local community, and have a greater "aura of credibility" than broadcast media which marketers assume to extend to advertisements. Though, as a trade-off, they lack the immediacy of television or radio, newspaper readers feel they are more objective and in-depth.
The drawback is that newspapers tend to be more fiercely defensive of their editorial discretion, and will run stories that may reflect poorly on a company or an industry. For example, even though airlines tend to be frequent newspaper advertisers, the newspapers will still run articles about airline disasters, or editorial stories that are critical of the industry.
Clutter is also an issue in newspapers, which average a 50/50 split between advertisements and editorial content, though as previously mentioned, readers do not object to advertising, and may even seek out advertisements in newspapers. However, from the advertiser's perspective, it can be hard to get your message to be noticed in the clutter of ads on each page.
(EN: Something the author doesn't mention is the poor quality of physical advertising in newspapers: it's generally black-and-white, using the very lowest quality ink and paper, such that images look awful and type can be illegible, so presentation capabilities are extremely limited.)
As with magazines, newspapers have utilized the Internet as an alternative or ancillary publishing medium, but with one exception (The Wall Street Journal), no newspaper has made its Web site operation into a commercial success. However, the author hints that the potential is there, as 625 of all Internet users report going to newspaper Web sites for local events, which is significantly higher than the number that go to a local television station's Web site for the same information.
Another problem with newspapers is declining readership, particularly among young readers. Hence, as the older generation passes away, they are not replaced by younger readers. The author mentions a few attempts to draw young adults back to the medium - such as the tug-of war between the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, each of which created a youth edition, and both of which failed miserably.
(EN: Given the number of media mergers and failures in recent years, I sought more up-to-date statistics on circulation and readership, but numbers varied widely. I suspect that, with advertising dollars at state, there are probably a lot of attempts to fudge the numbers, and so I'm stuck for reliable information.)
DISPLAY ADVERTISING
Display or "out of home" advertising includes billboards and signage, both along roadsides and in places of high pedestrian traffic (shopping malls, subway stations, airports, convention centers, etc.). This tends to be a very localized medium (generally, businesses with walking or driving distance of the advertisement), but highly popular in metropolitan areas, but national advertisers al save found these methods to be effective in building brand awareness.
The nature of display advertising is that the advertisement can be placed in a very specific location, for an extended period of time. In this sense, display advertisement has been found to be very effective in guiding customers to a location (highway billboard ads that say "take exit 78 and turn left, 2 miles") It's noted that display advertising can have considerable visual impact. Some advertisements can cover the sides of buildings, and advertisers have been innovative in using shape, lighting, and even animation to draw attention to an advertisement.
On the other side, there is little audience selectivity - it's literally whomever is passing by, which may not be many people, and may not be the right target audience, and there is little research available (or even possible) into demographics of physical locations. Also, it's generally the case that display advertising gets only fleeting attention - with the exception of posters at bus stops, stadium ads, and a few other instances in which advertising is located in a place where people linger, most display ads can get only a few seconds of attention as the audience is passing by, so messaging is limited.
INTERNET
(EN: The author's discussion of the Internet as a medium is truly awful - not merely because it is dated, but also because he does not seem to understand the medium very well at all. Rather than keep notes that will be peppered with updates and contrary remarks, I've decided not to preserve any notes at all.)
MOBILE
(EN: The author's coverage of the mobile medium is also terrible in its datedness and inaccuracy. Skipping this bit, too.)
OTHER MEDIA DELIVERY SYSTEMS
The author provides information about a number of channels that may not strictly qualify as "media" but perform the same basic function (carry information from marketer to consumer). What follows is a bit random:
Telemarketing involves one-to-one marketing between a customer and a live operator who often reads a sales pitch from a script. In spite of "do not call" legislations, telemarketing remains a "strong part of the marketing business" as companies discover ways to use the telephone for marketing in ways that are not forbidden by the letter of the law.
Mail marketing was one of the first methods of direct marketing, and continues to be a significant size ($60 billion in spending) that shows modest growth (3% per year), and the mailing list business continues to find ways to gather more detail about individuals to enable them to sell a more tightly-focused list (EN: though there is no evidence of increasing response rates).
The author mentions e-mail as a marketing medium (EN: but his take on it is outdated) and acknowledges the problem of spam cluttering the channel.