This Week's Automotive News

Automakers consider backing alternative to fuel economy bill.

Some automakers are close to calling for fuel economy standards as high as 36 mpg for cars and 30 mpg for light trucks, sources said today. The proposal would be offered as an alternative to a fuel economy measure scheduled to be considered by the full Senate the week of June 11. The Senate bill calls for a fleetwide average of 35 mpg by 2020 -- about 40 percent higher than today -- and further increases of 4 percent a year until 2030. Lobbyists for the industry have labeled the bill extreme and untenable. But with congressional sentiment high for action to reduce petroleum consumption and cut greenhouse gas emissions, automakers probably cannot simply kill the legislation.

Americans Spend Half of Their Spare Time Online

According to Netpop I Play, a new report from Media-Screen, broadband users spend an hour and 40 minutes (48% of their spare time) online in a typical weekday, and more than half of that is spent accessing activities related to entertainment and communication.

Josh Crandall, managing director of Media-Screen, says "Many broadband consumers go online for entertainment, and to talk about entertainment with other fans. Marketers need to leverage that interest..."

Search engines and social networking sites are gaining in popularity, says the report, influencing an equal number of people as magazines and newspapers. 48% of younger users say they learn about new entertainment through community, review and video sharing sites and blogs. Only 25% say they learn about new entertainment through television.

Crandall goes on to say "Currently, the proportion of advertising resources devoted to the Internet (about seven percent according to Zenith Optimedia) is nominal relative to the value it generates among fans and consumers, who on a typical weekday, spend more than 40% of their time consuming media\online..."

Two online media activities - sending email and visiting Web sites for personal reasons - are more popular than watching television, says the report:

Regular Media Related Activities (% of Respondents) Online Media

• Send Emails 90%
• Visit Web sites for personal reasons 81%
• Play online casual games 52%
• Instant messaging 35%
• Listen to MP3s 28%
• Sent text messages 26%
• Listen to Internet/online radio 25%

Regular Media Related Activities (%of Respondents) Offline Media

• Watch Television 63%
• Read magazines/newspapers 52%
• Watch videos/DVDs 52%
• Listen to AM/FM radio 48%
• Play video games 34%
• Watch pre-recorded TV 23%
• Watch video/movies on portable device 14%

Source: Media-Screen and Netpop Play 2006

And, the report finds that roadbanders spend 27 percent of their overall time online, or about one hour and forty minutes, on leisure and entertainment

Allocation of Time Spent Online (% of respondents)

• Liesure of Entertainment 27%
• Communication 27%
• News or Information 19%
• Personal Productivity 15%
• Shopping 12%

Other topics covered in the Report include:

• Online versus offline sources used to learn about bands, TV shows, movies, games and web sites
• Community-based activities such as rate/review a product, publish a personal page, upload a video or audio file
• Influence of user-generated sources and content
• Fan-related activities
• Entertainment content accessed online by psychographic group
• Demographics of population and usage among gender, age and income

What are you doing to keep your marketing message in front of a constantly evolving generation? My generation grew up with Cable TV and computers, and we don't consume traditional media such as broadcast or newspaper. Can you imagine just how difficult it will be in coming years to reach today's generation??? ~Curt

State of Emerging Technologies in Advertising

Several leaders of the cable sales industry expressed their opinions on the state of the industry at this week’s CAB conference held at the NCTA convention.

In response to the fate of the 30" ad, Comcast’s Charlie Thurston says, “The traditional linear 30” spot will become a facilitator for consumers with interactive capabilities......you can order catalogs, coupons, get company info by clicking on it.” He also provided an example, the 30" car ad is the hook, which will then lead to a deeper, rich consumer experience.

MTV’s Hank Close said, “I am happy to say video did not kill the radio star, it just gave it another platform.” He adds that MTV is working on commercial enhancers, pod-busters (one advertiser in a pod), and picturein-picture technology, which he states they have already used to great result. “While research is very supportive, as far as retention. . . it is going to take some revolution for the 30” spot to live, but I think it’s not only what our advertisers are looking for. . .it is what our audience is looking for.”

Reasons varied for which new medium is likely to have the greatest impact on business. Sean Bratcher of ESPN noted that HD is the most important to business. He says, “99% of our content is viewed live; DVR does not have a great impact.” VOD was most important to Thurston. “It allows us to take that 30” ad and stretch it.... DVR is also important.” He adds, “From a consumer experience, HD is huge.”

Moderator Stuart Varney then posed the question, “What is your vision of TV or video ten years from now?” Hank Close responded “(it’s) taking what we have today and marrying it with internet functionality, which is what we are starting to do now.” With time, mobile is going to
change and grow, it will become a greater percentage of what we view.” Joan Gillman of Time Warner Cable Media Sales summed up by saying that it will be “an integrated consumer experience – more seamless and relevant.”

News from Newspaper Association of America

If newspaper execs at the Newspaper Association of America conference last month were hoping to hear some good news, they had to be disappointed by some of the speakers. Rick Wagoner of General Motors told them that because its vehicles are “no longer on sale all the time,” the automaker didn’t need as much newspaper advertising as before to sell “the deal of the month.”

And Macy’s Chief Marketing Officer told them, “In order for your newspapers to be winning our advertising dollars, you need to be winning in the marketplace, and that’s not currently the case.” Anne MacDonald also said paid circulation is what matters, not pass-along copies or websites.

Top Advertising Blunders: Part 12

The twelfth and final Advertising Blunder according to Roy Williams. Three months of these weekly tips comes to an end.

Spending all your money on ads but getting no results? Perhaps you're making one of these 12 huge mistakes.

12. Confusing response with results: The goal of advertising is to create a clear awareness of your company and its unique selling proposition. Unfortunately, most advertisers evaluate their ads by the comments they hear from the people around them. The slickest, cleverest, funniest, most creative and most distinctive ads are the ones most likely to generate these comments. See the problem? When we confuse response with results, we create attention-getting ads that say absolutely nothing.

I can predict the success of a new marketing partnership by the willingness of the client and I to both agree on how results are being measured.

When a client is more interested in buying a zone where he, or his golf buddy, lives rather than a zone where his customers live... there is no success. When a client calls because he isn't seeing his ad enough, despite an increase in sales... there is no success.

Success is achieved when a well thought out marketing campaign is implemented with concerns to quality creative reaching current consumers and building brand equity with future consumers. ~ Curt

TNT's The Closer Series Premiere June 18th

Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) is a police detective who transfers from Atlanta to Los Angeles to head up a special unit of the LAPD that handles sensitive, high-profile murder cases. Despite a tendency to step on people’s toes, Johnson manages to convert even her strongest adversaries with her unique ability to get to the truth. The top ad-supported cable series of all time returns for season three!

Season Premieres: June 18 from 8-9PM
Regularly Scheduled: Mondays from 8-9PM

Top Advertising Blunders: Part 11

Only one more week left...part eleven of our twelve part series. Spending all your money on ads but getting no results? Perhaps you're making one of these 12 huge mistakes.

11. Great production without great copy: Too many ads today are creative without being persuasive. Slick, clever, funny, creative and different are poor substitutes for informative, believable, memorable and persuasive.

This ranks up there with the ads that leave you scratching your head wondering what the commercial you just watched was actually advertising. I'm all for being creative and clever, in fact I revel in it! However...this all hinges on fundamental, quality creative being your foundation. ~ Curt

This Week's Automotive News

Honda will put a hydrogen fuel-cell car in production next year, which will be priced under the Civic hybrid and deliver the equivalent of 68 MPG of gas. USA Today notes the cost of hydrogen that offers the same energy as gas is $3-$6.

With a lot of talk about $4 gas, a new survey finds scooters may become hot as an item for some commuters. The survey found 30% of respondents had some interest in converting to a scooter for some of their driving. Scooters get about 70 miles per gallon.

General Motors is starting a new round of 0% financing, this time for its full-size pickups, the Chevy Silverado and the GMC Sierra. GM is heavily-stocked with the models; it has a 101 day supply of Silverados already built, and a 129 days supply of Sierras, meaning dealers are paying heavy floorplanning costs on those trucks.

TV Viewing At An All Time High

The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau updated some of its previous research and found some very good news regarding television viewing. Perhaps best is that TV viewing continues to grow and is now at an all-time high of 31 hours per week per person. According to Multichannel News, CAB President Sean Cunningham says the “remarkable proliferation of video gadgets seems to be inspiring more interest in watching TV in general.” Broadcasting & Cable adds that traditional linear TV remains the biggest driver of interest in video across all possible devices.

Cunningham also said that viewers are much more tolerant and accepting of advertising on traditional television--where it has been all their lives--than they are on new viewing alternatives. Viewers on average find commercials up to 42 seconds acceptable on traditional TV, but find anything longer than 18 seconds objectionable for ads on the PCs, and will only accept ads or 12 seconds or shorter on mobile devices. “The lines are drawn on ad receptivity very, very sharply,” Cunningham said. He also pointed out that while there has been such an explosion of opportunities for video consumption, “What no one bargained for...is that in all this bombardment, cable TV thrived. This is the message.”

Top Advertising Blunders: Part 10

I have no idea what I'll use in my Marketing Minute here in a few weeks. These Advertising Blunders have made my life easier over the past three months. Part ten of our 12-part series of the 12 most common advertising blunders according to Roy Williams, author of The Wizard of Ads.

Spending all your money on ads but getting no results? Perhaps you're making one of these 12 huge mistakes.

10. Event-driven marketing: A special event should be judged only by its ability to help you more clearly define your market position and substantiate your claims. If 1 percent of the people who hear your ad for a special event choose to come, you will be in desperate need of a traffic cop and a bus to shuttle people from distant parking lots. Yet your real investment will be in the 99 percent who did not come! What did your ad say to them?

I have a client who owns a beautiful salon. She advertises just prior to Christmas, Valentines and Mother's Day. Makes sense, right? She used to advertise consistently, and these holidays were incredibly busy for her. A few years ago she scaled back advertising to just around these peak holidays. The first year there was still some success. However, once her 'brand' had lost it's position with her target audience, subsequent advertising centered around holidays lost their effect. Using Roy's words, she lost the other 99 percent! ~ Curt

The 10 Marketing Commandments

I wish with all my heart I could take credit for these 10 Commandments. I found this on another Marketing Blog ran by Jay Lipe, CEO of Emerge Marketing. They are genuine, thoughtful, a little funny...and most importantly ring true whether you are a Fortune 500 company or a mom and pop dry-cleaners. Enjoy! - Curt

These Ten Commandments didn’t come from the Mountain. And they’re not carved on clay tablets, but on a high-tensile polyfiber instead. Yet any marketer worth his or her salt must follow these commandments in order to find the Promised Land.

• Thou Shalt Not See Marketing as a Department. When you get right down to it, everyone in your company is a marketer. From the receptionist whose voice is the first thing your buyers hear, to the delivery person whose rear-end may be the last thing they see, every one of your employees plays a pivotal role in the orchestration of your marketing efforts. Good companies imbue every employee with healthy reverence for the customer so that the company, from every point of contact it has with its market, knows how to market.
• Thou Shalt Follow the Ninety Day Rule. Your customers, prospects and champions (those who refer business your way) should hear from you every 90 days. People are just too busy to remember you otherwise. If you don’t follow the 90-day rule, you risk getting shouted down by any competitor of yours who does.
• Honor the Concept of Tinkering with All your Heart. If you’re a 70’s child like me, you remember the hugely successful rock group Fleetwood Mac. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that their seemingly overnight success came only after years of tinkering. That’s right, before the release of their monster album Rumours, they endured no less than 14 personnel changes across 10 years. In marketing, as in rock and roll, success seldom happens with your original line-up.
• Thou Shalt Not Quit. Moses and the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years without giving up. You owe it to yourself (and maybe Moses too) to try any new marketing initiative at least three times before throwing in the towel. Your prospect could have been out of the country the first time you ran it, and tending to his sick mother the second. Repetition is a marketer’s best friend.
• Thou Shalt Feed Thy Prospecting Funnel. Suspects become prospects, who then become customers. And these customers then generate referrals who create more prospects and the cycle begins anew. For thousands of years, this marketing process (also known as the prospecting funnel) has governed marketing activities for all companies, and I feel safe saying that it will continue this way for another thousand years.
• Remember Thine Marketing Time by Keeping it Holy. Successful marketing campaigns don’t take the summer off, nor are they created “when I have the time.” You must make the time. I’ve found it’s helpful to consistently carve out the same day and time each week to work on marketing tasks. For me, it’s Friday afternoons; for you it may be different. But whatever day and time you choose, honor it with all your heart.
• Thou Shalt Jettison One Program Every Year. I can’t count the number of stressed out marketers I’ve seen over the last 15 years. As task after task is added to their plates , nothing is ever removed. Stop this madness at once, and identify one marketing task each year to eliminate. Too often, someone keeps doing a task (e.g. issuing a report), yet it’s not adding value. Eliminate one marketing task a year; your health depends upon it.
• Thou Shalt Not Cut Marketing Spending During Slow Times. From 1980 to 1985, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies and their marketing spending. After 1985, McGraw-Hill concluded that those firms which had maintained or increased their advertising during the recession in ’81-’82 boasted an average sales growth of 275% over the next five years. But those companies who cut their advertising saw paltry sales growth over the next five years of just 19%. When is the right time to market your business? All the time.
• Thou Shalt Honor Exiting Employees. I once had a travel industry client run a report that showed where their new referrals came from. The second highest category was ex-employees. It turns out vacation shoppers were asking these ex-employees where they could book a Vegas package just like the neighbor’s they’d heard about, and the ex-employees were referring them back to their old employer. When you treat your departing employees with a dose of good will, they may just turn into your unpaid sales force and refer business your way.
• Thou Shalt Thank Often. Sadly, we live in an age of boorishness. But a savvy marketer can do his part to bring civility into an otherwise uncivilized world. Among the countless ways to thank customers are thank you notes, gift certificates and appreciation lunches to name just a few. These thank you’s don’t have to be showy. Just make sure the thank you is classy and considerate, and the kindness will eventually be repaid.

Local newspaper circulation down 14.3 percent!

A few of my clients still incorporate a small percentage of their ad dollars in newspaper, so I do my best to keep my finger on the pulse of local print. The Dallas Business Journal had a great article on-line yesterday reporting on the state of circulation (or lack of) for The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! - Curt

Report: Newspaper circulation down 2 percent
Dallas Business Journal - 2:05 PM CDT Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Several big-city newspapers endured big-time drops in circulation as the hard-hit industry continues to lose readers.

Daily newspaper circulation -- from metro newspapers such The New York Times and Los Angeles Times to the small dailies -- declined 2.1 percent, and Sunday readership fell 3.1 percent during the past six months, compared to the year ago October through March period, according to an Audit Bureau of Circulation report released Monday.

Fifteen of the nation's 20 largest newspapers reported drops in readership, led by The Dallas Morning News' 14.3 percent tumble to 411,919 readers. However, it's the first time the Dallas newspaper has participated in the report since 2004, when it was censured for misstating circulation figures.

Newsday of Long Island and The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., reported 6 percent-plus declines in readership, the largest drops following the Morning News. Daily circulation at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram dropped 3.6 percent.

The Miami Herald's daily circulation fell 5.5 percent, while Sunday readership plummeted 10.1 percent, according to an analysis of the ABC report by Editor & Publisher magazine.
Shares of McClatchy (NYSE: MNI), which owns the Star-Telegram, were down 13 cents to $28.77 in trading Tuesday.

Belo Corp. (NYSE: BLC) shares were down 4 cents Tuesday morning to $19.23. Belo owns The Dallas Morning News.

Two of the nation's largest daily newspapers -- USA Today and The Wall Street Journal -- were two of the five top 20 newspapers that reported an increased in readers. Gannett Co. Inc.-owned USA Today's daily readership inched up 0.2 percent to 2.3 million, while The Wall Street Journal gained 0.6 percent circulation to 2.1 million readers.

The New York Post reported a 7.6 percent increase to almost 725,000 daily readers, easily the largest gain in readers. The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Plain Dealer of Cleveland also bucked the national trend, with half-percentage point gains, according to the closely watched industry report.

Top Advertising Blunders: Part 9

We're almost there! Part nine of our 12-part series of the 12 most common advertising blunders according to Roy Williams, author of The Wizard of Ads.

Spending all your money on ads but getting no results? Perhaps you're making one of these 12 huge mistakes.

9. Overconfidence in qualitative targeting: Many advertisers and media professionals grossly overestimate the importance of audience quality. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It's amazing how many people become "the right people" when you're saying the right thing.

Quality creative dictates success. Reach, frequency and targeting are all secondary to the message. I once had a client with a huge budget, every media reps dream... with one exception...his ego was even bigger than his budget!

He insisted on starring in every TV spot we produced. He had a face for radio and a voice for print. Needless to say, his advertising was a 'complete failure' according to him. Quality creative dictates success. - Curt