Advertising

Last year, magazine publisher Meredith Corp. produced a report that revealed the rise of what Meredith dubbed "Gamma Women" -- influential and well-connected women who share and exchange information.

After identifying Gammas and touting their importance, Meredith is looking for ways to use its network of high-powered female readers as a marketing tool. Meredith, which publishes women's magazines like More, Ladies Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens, estimates that its Gamma audience is 55 million American women strong.

So now Meredith has partnered with women's marketing network SheSpeaks to launch a new product that will take advantage of its Gamma network, spread word about products through Meredith's magazines and promote products and brands through word of mouth. This new marketing approach can be tailored for each specific product or brand, Meredith said.

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The United States isn't the only country to be hit by the advertising decline. According to media buying agency, Carat, Europe will see a seven percent fall in advertising revenue in 2009. That's a huge change from August, when the organization predicted spending would rise 4.8 percent year-over-year.

According to the report, Central and Eastern Europe — down 8.2 percent — will suffer more than Western Europe, which will only see a 6.6. percent drop-off.

Spain will be the individual country that's hit the hardest, watching at spending fall more than 15 percent. The UK should lose roughly seven percent of its revenue.

One bright spot is China. The agency predicts an increase of 4.6 percent, although this is significantly down from the 11 percent growth Carat foresaw in August.

The survey predicts United States spending to drop 9.8 percent.

In December, analysts predicted advertising spending in the United States would fall 10 percent in 2009 and grow one percent in 2010. Just three months later, the picture has gotten even bleaker. Barclays Capital's U.S. Media and Internet group believes revenue will fall 13 percent and 1.5 percent during the same time periods.

Furthermore, Barclays analysts wrote that many media properties would be among the hardest hit.

We seem to be using this down arrow illustration a lot these days.

Advertising revenue won't increase for at least another 12 months, says an article in Ad Age. In fact, we're currently in the midst of the worst downturn since dum, dum, dum The Great Depression, with spending projected to drop in three consecutive years.

Although the recession began in late 2007, advertising on a "a measured-media basis" didn't decrease until a couple months later, in March 2008. The outlook for 2009 is also gloomy, with watchers predicting even less spending. Not surprisingly, retail and auto advertisers were among the biggest culprits.

But there's some good news...

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The Internet advertising slowdown is here. Or at least this is what one might assume looking at Esquire's latest E-Newsletter. At the bottom — after trumpeting content on Esquire.com including some very cool Jeopardy questions — the email contains space that's clearly delineated for advertisements. So what's in the two boxes? More links to Esquire.com content.

Now granted, the newsletter is a relatively new product (although not that new), but even so, wouldn't you expect advertisers to be falling all over themselves for access to the magazine's presumably rich subscriber pool. The fact that the newsletter went unsold is a bad sign, and it's only going to get worse.

Over at Ad Age (via Silicon Alley Insider), Michael Learmonth discusses why the online advertising slowdown might actually be good for the industry. He speaks with a number of insiders who attempt to provide some positive news, even as the world burns.

Learmonth argues the real advantage will be that the market will have time to undergo some much needed correction. Money went so quickly to the online space that the talent and companies hiring the talent didn't have time to adjust accordingly. For example, executive salaries doubled to $300,000, well out-pacing what the employees were actually worth. The slowdown will provide a chance for companies to sort it all out. (Plus, on average it takes 2.5 times the number of staff to create a digital media campaign versus a traditional one. This is the type of fat that the industry needs to rid itself of and the slowdown offers a perfect opportunity to accomplish this task.)

Some other positives after the jump.

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TNS Media Intelligence reported that ad spending fell 1.6 percent in the first six months of 2008 compared with a year ago. More damningly, spending dropped 3.7 percent in the second quarter, the largest single quarter drop since 2001.

Not surprisingly, newspapers and radio were the biggest losers, falling 7.4 percent and 6.5 percent respectively. Television fell 0.4 percent. Network TV slipped 2.4 percent, while cable saw advertising rise 3.1 percent.

But the good news is we're on the rebound, right?

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The race between Barack Obama and John McCain is just getting started, but potential presidential nominees have already spent $900 million getting to this point (including $200+ million by Hillary Clinton and $100+ million by Mitt Rommney). That's a lot of money and is surely helping the flailing media community.

But wait, they aren't done. Obama is reportedly spending half a million per week in 16 different swing states, money that is helping his cause.

It remains to be seen whether the spending push comes too early, but if McCain — who's had money troubles in the past — thought Obama had loose purse strings way back in February, we can only imagine what he'll say going forward.

Our brother bloggers at PRNewser just posted a quite excellent interview with tech PR guru Robert Scoble that we recommend checking out. Scoble is currently in charge of new venture FastCompany.TV. A choice excerpt:

PRNewser: Well you do have your phone number on your blog, you drop it on Twitter, how does that work? How many calls do you get a day? Do you get a lot of prank calls from people?

RS: I don't get a lot of those calls, because the phone, it gives me your identity and if you call me I can call you back. So, if you call me with something idiotic, I can call you back at three in the morning and bother you too. So right there's that built in trust with the phone. I guess that's one way to contact me. I get a lot of email, so if you're sending me an email, if you want to rise above the clutter, put something on it, say "hey!"

Scoble is speaking at the Mediabistro Circus as well.

We just (unfortunately) live in it.

Urban Outfitters' advertisement for their new Brooklyn location (at Atlantic Ave. between Clinton & Court) just got our attention. First picked up by Sam Horine and quickly afterwards by our friends at Gothamist, it's one giant pile of WTF.

1. The L train runs nowhere near Cobble Hill. In fact, Google Maps tells us that the drive from Atlantic Avenue & Clinton Street to the nearest L stop at Bedford Avenue is 4.9 miles.
2. Paul's Boutique was in Manhattan, dipwads.
3. Couldn't you have gotten a better pic of DUMBO, err, Dumbo?
4, 5, 6....
852. The design sucks. We could do better on a PD analogue of Pagemaker at 2am after three tumblers of Wild Turkey 101. Really.

This is why sometimes we fantasize about moving to Bay Ridge or Midwood and just watching New York's incoming creative field types kill each other off from the comfort of an old man bar. It's tempting... and besides, the pizza there is better anyhow.