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Ad Spending Forecasts Highlight China and the Internet

This week, ZenithOptimedia released its “Adspend Forecast Update” for December 2010 and one type of advertising and one region of the world drew attention as the focus of opportunity for the future.  In other words, companies are shifting budgets and investing more money into the large-scale opportunity of China and the lost-cost and wide-reach of the Internet.

According to the report summary, the key findings are:

  • After the surprisingly strong 4.9% recovery this year, we predict annual growth of between 4.6% and 5.2% for the next three years.
  • Global ad expenditure to exceed the 2008 peak in 2012.
  • Developing markets to continue to grow much faster than developed markets: developing markets will account for 35.9% of ad expenditure in 2013, up from 31.5% in 2010
  • Ad expenditure in newspapers and magazines to fall by 2% between 2010 and 2013. Technology to help television, cinema and outdoor grow ahead of the market, while internet advertising grows three times faster than the market as a whole.
  • Display advertising now the fastest-growing internet category, driven by online video and social media.

You can get a clear picture of how the shift in media investments are expected to go in the chart below:

ZenithOptimedia_adspending-forecasts

Most media investments are expected to decrease or stay fairly even through 2013 with one exception — Internet which is expected to experience a 39.8% increase in adspend between 2009 and 2010.  The next closest medium with a predicted increase is television with a 6.9% change.  Clearly, we’re going to experience several years of companies and brands vying for attention and trying to learn how to best leverage the Internet to build brands and make sales.

When it comes to regional investments, the Asia Pacific region is forecasted to see major media advertising expenditures increase by 31.0% between 2009 and 2013.  That’s not as high as the increases expected in Latin America (43.3%), Central Europe (39.8%) or Africa and the Middle East (32.2%), but considering that China accounts for 20% of the world’s population, the return on those advertising investments in the Asia Pacific region could be exponentially better than in any other area of the world.

Given the economic downturn that spread across much of the world in recent years, emerging markets have gained traction in terms of prioritization for advertising investments.  The ZenithOptimedia forecast certainly supports the assumption that the trend will continue well into the future.

Where are you investing your advertising budget in terms of media and geographical region over the next several years?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Most Brand Buzz Online is Positive so Let Them Talk!

Research conducted by the Keller Fay Group reveals that there are far more positive conversations happening about brands online than negative conversations.  If you’re not giving up control already and letting consumers talk about your brand online, then these statistics should alleviate some of your concerns.

While some industries received a higher percentage of positive versus negative brand buzz online than others, even industries that have come under fire in recent years have experienced more positive buzz than negative according to the research results.

For example, the telecom industry was reported to be the subject of the fewest positive conversations at 51% versus 23% mixed conversations and 14% negative. The financial services industry was split similarly with 51% of buzz positive, 16% mixed and 15% negative.

At the other end of the spectrum, the food and dining industry experienced 73% positive buzz, 12% mixed and 6% negative while the personal care and beauty and the beverages industries experienced 72% positive, 12% mixed and 5% negative online conversations and buzz.

emarketer-positive-word-of-mouth-chart

Another key finding in the Keller Fay Group study tells us how people feel about the information they glean from word-of-mouth conversations online and what they do with that information.  As the chart to the left shows, both positive and negative online buzz influences consumers, but those responses are more likely to occur when positive buzz is heard as opposed to negative buzz.

There is no doubt that using the social web to create and drive online conversations, sharing and buzz about your brand can deliver positive results to your bottom-line.  The concern that negative conversations could usurp those positive conversations is a possibility, but as the statistics from these reports show, the potential for rewards outweighs the risks.

Have you given up control and let the conversation about your brand spread across the web in the form of word-of-mouth marketing yet?  Leave a comment and share your reason why you are or are not leveraging the power of the online buzz to build your brand and business.

Image source: eMarketer

A Rabbit Warren of Brazilian Banking CSR

Come Into The Rabbits Hole trimManagement & Excellence is what I can only describe as an intriguing and unique company.  Their website describes them as:

a research and rating company in the areas of ethics, sustainability, corporate governance, transparency and corporate social responsibility (CSR) specialized in Latin America, Spain and the oil industry worldwide

The company recently released the results of their 2010 “Most Sustainable Latin Bank” survey (PDF).   And the winner is (for the SIXTH year running!) Itaú-Unibanco.

This is no surprise.  Itaú-Unibanco is the largest Brazilian bank and one of the top 500 companies in the world, maintaining a presence not just in Latin American but also the US, Japan, Hong Kong, the UK and the UAE.  It’s no Merrill Lynch, but neither is it a small town squib.

But how can you examine its exceptional sustainability record online?  Only through digging, it would appear. [Read more…] about A Rabbit Warren of Brazilian Banking CSR

Fresh Ideas for Your Corporate Blog

A guest post from Barbara Jolie on keeping your corporate blog fresh and interesting.

fresh-paintCorporate blogs can get a little stagnant, but not if you approach them from a fresh angle from time to time. In writing this, I realize that corporate communications professionals are often given a very limited scope from which to write. Some corporate bloggers are given specific instructions and must generate routine, cut-and-dry content on subject matter that is completely out of their control. If you don’t have the freedom to change the types of information you are locked into, disregard this post. But if you have a bit more latitude for creativity than the average corporate blogger, or you are tasked with livening up a blog that currently gets very little traffic, try coming at your routine blog postings from a fresh perspective.

Now, even corporate bloggers who are given a bit of latitude will need to run many of these ideas past their superiors, but I think they are definitely worth suggesting. One of the first things you can do is begin writing in a first-person, conversational tone. From the start, blogs that connect with a large audience have been personal. While it may not be appropriate for you to use “I” language, you can certainly begin using “we” language. For example, instead of saying, “John Doe Financial is now offering this or that new service,” you can change the language to first person and say “We are proud to offer our customers a new service that will allow them to do such and such.”

Another idea is to write on industry-related hot topics in a journalistic style. Let’s stick with the financial services firm I used as an example and say that recent bad news stories on the state of the economy are getting investors nervous. You could interview some of the seasoned financial advisors at your firm on the top investor concerns, gather quotes, and craft a series of posts on investing through tough economic times. Not only does this help get new professional company voices into the corporate blog other than your own, but taking a professional stance on hot topics in the media that relate to your industry is also a great way to connect with your current blog followers and gather more followers.

In the same vein, you can solicit blog posts from professionals in your company or merely collaborate with them on brief, industry-related how-to posts. For a financial services firm, topics about personal finance and saving money would be relevant. Interspersing these types of short, bite-sized posts in with longer, company-specific posts provides more variety to readers of a corporate blog.

If your corporate blog does not allow visitor comments, lobby your supervisors to enable them. While you will undoubtedly become a moderator for such comments, which can be a royal pain, there is no better way to engage readers than by giving them a voice as well. Failing this, at least lobby to post an e-mail address on the corporate blog home page where readers can communicate their thoughts directly to the corporate communications team and let you in on the topics they would like to see addressed in the blog.

Finally, when drafting a blog post, ask one final question before publishing it to keep your corporate blog from becoming so laden with marketing-speak that it is of little value to readers. After answering the who, what, where, when and why in the post, be sure to answer the question who cares? Find an angle in your blog post that points out how the information contained in the post is relevant to customers and/or investors.

This guest post is contributed by Barbara Jolie, who writes on the topics of online classes. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: barbara.jolie876@gmail.com.

Big Shift in Holiday Brand Advertising Spending

holiday-seasons_sale_2Holiday marketing and advertising budgets for retailers are staying relatively flat this year, but that money won’t be spent the same way it has been in prior years.  2010 holiday advertising budgets will be spread in new ways to match the changing behaviors of consumers.

According to the BDO Retail Compass Survey, fewer companies are cutting holiday advertising budgets in 2010 (just 20% will cut holiday advertising budgets) than in 2009 (26% cut holiday advertising budgets) and in 2008 (32% cut holiday advertising budgets).

In 2010, more companies are prioritizing television over print and social media is gaining a larger piece of the ad spending budget.  25% of chief marketing officers who responded to the BDO survey reported that the majority of their holiday advertising budgets will be spent on television this year (up from 13% in 2009), and 42% stated that the bulk of their holiday advertising spending will occur in the print space (down from 64% in 2009).  In the online space, 27% of respondents reported that most of their holiday advertising budgets will go toward online ads and social media initiatives (up from 18% in 2009).

In fact, a full 75% of respondents stated they would be investing in social media marketing during the holiday season in 2010, which is a significant jump from the 51% who invested in social media in 2009.  Facebook is dominant in terms of brand advertising spending this holiday season.  92% of respondents reported that they would be investing in some form of marketing and advertising via Facebook, followed by 60% investing in Twitter, 20% investing on YouTube, and 8% investing on MySpace.

While companies are realizing that consumers are spending time on the social Web and brands need to be there, too, particularly during the holiday season, there is still no recipe for marketing success via social media.  It’s not surprising that 62% of respondents to the BDO survey are investing less than 10% of their 2010 holiday season advertising budgets on social media.  On the flip side, just over 1% of respondents are investing 70-79% of their holiday season advertising budgets on social media.

It will be interesting to see who wins — big social media spenders or small social media spenders.  One thing is certain — the 2010 holiday season will provide a lot of data for analysis as companies review brand performance and advertising effectiveness in 2011.  However, with the global economy still struggling, it’s difficult to know what behaviors will transcend the economic downturn.  It’s probably safe to assume that the 2011 holiday season will be filled with just as much testing and trial and error as the 2010 season.

Image: stock.xchng

United Nations Principles on Business and Human Rights | An Introduction

An example page, showing discussion and
agreement at the bottom. Click to enlarge.

Last week, the United Nations Special Representative on Human Rights, John Ruggie, released the draft “Guiding Principles for the Implementation of the UN ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework” for consultation.

Businesses and stakeholders have the opportunity to comment on them up until the end of January 2011, after when they will be prepared for formal presentation to the UN Human Rights Council later in the year.

The framework contains 29 principles which rest on three foundations:

  • the state’s duty to protect human rights
  • business’ responsibility to respect human rights
  • free access to meaningful remedy where breaches occur

The full document can be read in PDF format here, or viewed online here.  The online representation doubles up as a forum, with registered users able post comments after each principle which other users able to rate as relevant and show their agreement (or disagreement).

This is a rather neat and straightforward way of collating opinion and I hope other consultations take note!  Real respect to the University of Western Ontario, whose fourth year design students are apparently responsible for it.

For your convenience, here’s a potted summary of some of the most important statements:

Principle 5: governments should encourage and where necessary require businesses to respect and report upon their human rights activities; they should not presume that businesses prefer or benefit from state inaction

Principle 10: governments should be prepared to withdraw public support from businesses involved in gross human rights abuses if they fail to address the situation

Principle 11:  multilateral institutions (eg. the IMF) should not constrain governments’ ability to act on human rights and should use these guidelines to foster mutual understanding between their members

Principle 12/13: businesses should have in place appropriate policies and process based (as a minimum) on the International Convention on Human Rights and the International Labour Organisation’s core conventions

Principle 14: businesses’ commitment should include approval from the most senior level of the organisation, be communication to all staff, partners and stakeholders and make clear the company’s expectations of staff and partners alike

Principle 15/16/17: businesses should have a due diligence process ongoing which will identify human rights risks and impacts and feed these into standard decision making processes

Principle 18/19: businesses should track their human rights performance and be prepared to discuss their record publicly with relevant stakeholders

Principle 23/24/25: governments have to ensure that human rights abuses in their territories are met with effective and enforceable judicial and non judicial remedies and mechanisms

Principle 27/28: businesses should establish grievance mechanisms for communities who may be adversely impacted by their operations and participate in cross industry and multi-stakeholder initiatives

All in all there’s nothing too shocking in these guidelines although there are a few places where the information provided needs to be finessed.  Generally speaking, it can be assumed these Guidelines will go forwards as presented.

This also presents a golden opportunity for businesses to steal a march on their competitors and build new functionality into their websites.  Not just to report their human rights record, but also to collate information and participate in collaborative schemes.