MediaEnthusiast

A few weeks ago, following the new FTC guidelines that affected the blogging community, Mediamark Research & Intelligence released a one-sheet on the size of the blogging community.  With only 3.4% of the total adult population writing blogs, it’s somewhat remarkable that they’ve such a strong impact on consumers and have grabbed so much attention from the marketing and advertising community.

What is it about this niche group, beyond an ability to write (hopefully on similar subjects as the marketers’ products/services) to their captivated audience?  What’s driving them to spend their time writing, often for free?  Going back to that same, most recent MRI study (Spring 2009), I drilled a little further into the heart of the blogging community: those that both write and read the online articles (2.7%, or just 6M adults).

More than Moms

While we often hear about the Mommy Blogging storm, only 51% of adults who visit and write blogs are women.  In fact, less than 50% of all bloggers even have kids in their households, making only 23% or 1.4M Bloggers who are Moms of a kid under 18.  Nearly a third of Bloggers are presumably “roomies,” living with multiple adults in their home.  Similarly, Bloggers are also 55% more likely (than other adults) to have never married.  This, of course, is a direct reflection of their younger skew, as graphed in that Consumer Intelligence article from MRI.

Imagine That

To captivate an audience, bloggers are more than strong writers.  Publishing regularly requires a lot of content; their natural creativity and curiosity combine to inspire that material.  They spend more time going to museums and art galleries; painting or drawing; playing a musical instrument; and reading books.  This also drives their desire to continue learning new things, which keeps them not only in the classroom, but seeking new experiences in travels both domestically and around the world.

Taking a Break

Seeking variety in their everyday is important and they consider themselves to be very sociable, which leads them to spend a lot of time doing fun things.  Activities shared with friends are preferred: participating in team sports; golfing; going to bars and nightclubs; playing pool; attending live music; and going to the movies are just a few ways they like to break their routine with friends. 

Their downtime isn’t always about being out with their friends, though.  They also enjoy time at home, playing word games or on their computer, reading up about new technology and current events, or even perusing the ‘net for fashion advice.

“In My Opinion…”

Their curiosity and large time spent searching for new, interesting things gives them a lot to talk about, on- and off-line.  They thrive at being in the spotlight and will admit they enjoy being the center of attention.  Comfortable expressing themselves and often finding themselves in a leadership position, they’re more likely to have made speeches, signed petitions, called radio stations, written editors, or written something that’s been published.  With friends, they also often seek out ways to share their opinions, particularly when it comes to products.  They like to be the first among their friends and co-workers to try the latest products and services, and often give advice before those peers make purchases.

Making an Impression

With so many eyes on them, it’s no wonder they want to look their best.  Exercise is essential, but they also wear designer clothes to impress others and admit that they, “want others to say ‘wow’,” when they see their tech gadgets.

Under Pressure

Similarly, they also like to give the impression that their busy lives are under control.  With so much on their plates, they use technology to help stay organized, carrying PDAs and booking travel, making purchases and paying bills online.  Beyond not putting a stamp on an envelope, they cut out little daily routines like clipping coupons and preferring stores that offer low daily prices.  They are also more likely to make fast, impulsive purchases and spend on credit if they really want something.

At the end of the day, they still agree, “I’m so busy, I often can’t finish everything I need to in a day.”  Eleven percent have even experienced anxiety in the last year; that’s 54% more likely than the average adult.

Despite their busy schedules, that endless desire to seek, experience and share drives them to be the Bloggers that are not only loved by their audience but by marketers.  If they like a product, they’re likely to talk about it, on- or off-line; they’re brand ambassadors, regardless of their websites.  The FTC may now require them to say if they received that product for free, but that shouldn’t stop marketers from pursuing relationships with appropriate Bloggers.

Thanks to a “helpful” group called the CCFC, it seems like I shouldn’t be allowed to pick my kids up from school.  If you listen to the radio with your kids in the car, you might be as guilty as I am.

BusRadio was a radio station in buses crossing 160 school districts in the country.  The programming included kid-friendly music, news, health and safety tips, contests, and – yes – even advertising.  That is, it did until the service was shut down on Monday, according to Media Life.

Fueled by the “Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood” (CCFC), the FCC has apparently cracked down, forcing the service to close.  While the reason for the abrupt end has not been confirmed by BusRadio, the CCFC has been fast to stand up and take responsibility for the company’s demise. 

Way to go, guys.  I’m sure no kids have rushed home this week to grab their remotes without hearing the “entreaties to spend their after-school hours watching TV and playing videogames” on their bus ride.  In fact, I’m sure that they’re sitting in silence, missing the censored version of their local Top-40’s station that is likely not only available in their parents’ cars, but right in their own bedroom via (>gasp<) a radio!  Certainly, they’re not talking to each other on the bus about the hot new video game or toy that they already have at home, fueling the evil word-of-mouth.

There’s a reason that I call myself a “media fundraiser”: we (in advertising-media) make it free, cheap and/or even possible.  Perhaps we could consider ourselves “community fundraisers” as well, if only people would let us do our jobs.

Media Life’s Toni Fitzgerald seems to agree, “…school districts are pinched for money and looking for nontraditional ways to account for budget shortfalls. Programs like BusRadio, which required no upfront fee from the school districts and cut them in on a portion of the ad revenue, fulfill that need.”

This is quite a conundrum that we find ourselves in.  I don’t think anyone would disagree that we have a need for quality education, which also requires funding beyond what’s obviously available.  There are other ways of getting money than relying on a check from our debt-ridden government, yet the voices of a few can captivate even parents enough to help prevent assistance.

As silly as it is to think that the FCC might say that I’m not allowed to play the radio in my car when I pick up my kids, so is it to think that four minutes of advertising in a loud, kid-filled bus is going to make a bit of difference in how many times they ask for that Barbie or cell phone.

Maybe the parents in this group should’ve said “no” a few more times to their own kids, or spent some time explaining what a commercial is when they were exposed.  Perhaps if they’d taken such responsibilities, they wouldn’t be blaming advertisers and media vendors for their children’s greed.

Networking, conversations, DM’s, RT’s, links, picture sharing, and naked video spam came to an abrupt halt yesterday when Twitter was taken down.

Those first few hours of realizing I was without my 140-character voice was gripping.  I imagined myself in a world without communication, as if a bomb had struck, as I hit refresh again and again.  What if I was the only one that couldn’t get on and missed something interesting?  What if I had something witty to say?  What if I got a DM and couldn’t reply?  What if I got a new follower and couldn’t return the courtesy fast enough?  What if a client got mad that I hadn’t increased their followers that day?

Starting to shake, I scooped my daughter up and headed off to Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead.  (Did you know it’s humid in Kansas in August, and you probably shouldn’t go outside in jeans?)  We pet goats and cows, fed ducks and geese, and I watched her climb and slide on playgrounds.   I was surprised by the crowd for a Thursday morning; there were a lot of small tour groups, teenage couples, grandparents, SAHM’s, and even dual parents with kids. 

As I wondered how many of those dual parents were on staycations and how many were victims of the economy (or perhaps both), a sweet faced woman, Becky smiled at me and complimented my daughter.  Soon after starting to chat, she explained that after being laid off in March and unable to find a job, she was starting her own business.  Sure enough, she asked for my email and phone number, to help her with marketing; just as if we’d met on Twitter.

How did you survive without Twitter?

If a billboard falls in the middle of a field, does anyone notice as they’re speeding past?

Driving across the middle of the country, kids and husband finally sleeping, I had time for my favorite long drive activity: looking at billboards.  As I started searching for those ridiculous headlines that you see so often in the middle of nowhere, I found the scenery to be more frightening than humorous.  Sign after sign posted variations of, “Your Ad Here.”

As a lover of media and advertising, I felt a cold shudder.  It was like driving through my childhood neighborhood, turned into a ghost town.  For the first time since my own bad news and layoff, I felt true fear.  I found myself wishing that my kids’ whining was still a distraction as I held my breath through the graveyard.

On the upside, among all of the empty space, I still found a few of those nutty little advertisers that need our help.  For instance, after being served a 3-board teaser message about Jesus, we were delivered to the doors of the XXX Adult Video Store and Massage Parlor.  At least God and porn still have budgets.

As September drop-deads are upon us, I’m hearing a lot about tumbling circulations and ad pages continuing to fade from magazines.  While it’s true that advertising budgets are trending downward, we have to remember that this started long ago.  Before big government bailouts, unemployment surges, mass foreclosures, and the fall of the auto industry, the once booming magazine industry has been quietly suffering.

The strength of magazines didn’t take such an immediate pummeling from things like the mass adoption of the internet as it’s printed sibling newspapers did.  But as more consumers’ dollars were allocated to cell phones and broadband connections, magazines began to see circulations decrease.  In early desperation, some publications falsified audit reports or inflated verified circulations, dumping titles in unnecessary public places.  They began to lose the faith of their advertising partners, and some began to close.

Planners paying attention began demanding cleaner circulations along with deeper discounts, free space, premium placement, product integration, cross-platform opportunities.  With the negative press, they had to deliver greater ROI to clients.  Even titles which had historically refused to negotiate began making “special exceptions” and “finding loopholes.”

While a great value for clients and making the negotiator look like hot-stuff, the additional decrease in revenue only fueled magazines’ woes.  Combined with the economy’s hard fall, titles both young and old began to announce last issues.  Those same planners once considered savvy are now fidning themselves knocked for buying “cheap space” in a title that didn’t survive.  (Shameless Plug: Check out Magazine Death Pool for more dirt.) 

Today, clients are uncertain of budgets, don’t trust signing annual plans, and don’t know which title is going to be cut next.  Their lower budgets are still forcing even higher ROI expectations, yet the lack of commitment means positioning can rarely be negotiated, decreasing the medium’s value.  Of course, that means they’ll need to balance that loss with even bigger discounts and more free pages.

As a media planner, I jokingly used to say that I was a “media fundraiser” to folks not in advertising.  (Lest I be asked, again, if I write the commercials.)  Today, I wonder if I should’ve spent more time focusing on getting those funds approved, and a little less time doing multiple rounds of negotiations with titles I was forcing out of business.

I had a rather upsetting conversation with (what was) one of my favorite consumer and marketing research providers yesterday. 

I called Simmons (an Experian product), simply curious how much it would cost to gain access to their research.  I’m considering purchasing some consumer data, because I like being smart and I like writing about smart things.  I’m also working on a few independent ventures, and believe even the smallest “shop” needs to pony up some cash for research if they need it.  (Does anyone have a pony I can sell for research?)

After finding my contact was void (what? in this economy?), I was routed and rerouted and put on hold.  Finally, I was put through to a “woman” (the quotes are me being nice) who could tell me how much it costs.  I would tell you, except I still don’t know.  Also, please don’t think I’m being nice to her by omitting her name; she never told it to me.  I would have asked, but she was so short, I thought there might be a gnarly bear standing in her office, waiting with claws out.  I did, however, leave out the costs she quoted me in respect of her obvious fear.  (The below is paraphrased; it all happened so fast!)

“First,” she informed me, “you have to pay for an Experian membership.”  

For a minute, I thought I had another wrong person, “Experian membership?  For Simmons research?”

With a big sigh, she replied, “Simmons is a part of Experian, mam, so yes.  Then, you have to pay for the commercial building inspection.  Then..”

Now I was really confused, “Wait.  Commercial what?”

“Commercial building inspection.  We have to come and inspect your building for security purposes.”

“I don’t have a building.  I own a house and I work in my pajamas.”

“You work out of your home?”

“Yes.”

As soon as she realized that I was at home, her shortness diminished to brashness.  At one point, I thought she was going to just hang up, but I still wanted to know how much it cost.  I pleaded that to get a commercial building, I would have to write a business proposal and include how much my resources were going to cost as a part of that.  She explained that I had to be already established, and in a commercial building, before she could even talk to me.

I apologized for keeping her on the phone and let her go before the bear attacked.  I hope she got out okay, but I was left standing in my kitchen, wondering wtf had even just happened.  Did I really just have such an outdated conversation, with what’s supposed to be a forward thinking research company?  They’re going to tell me how consumers are thinking, acting, and spending, while they don’t even support an independent, work-from-home, entrepreneurial workforce, like the one that’s exploding right now due to the recession?

Really, Experian/Simmons?  Are you even paying attention at all?

I might not have gotten my question answered on how much it costs to pay for their research, but I guess it doesn’t matter since I don’t want a commercial building.  It did, however, explain why they’re not on twitter, either.

@mediaenthusiast

I have good news, and I have bad news.  On my upside, I have free time these days to publish here again.  On my downside, I was laid off. 

I don’t want to dwell on it with a sob-fest; there’s plenty of that going around.  Despite the shame and disappointment I intermittently feel, it’s easy to hold my head high knowing that I went with a lot of good company.  From both my beloved advertising industry and across the country, an astounding 467,000 cuts were made in June, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.  That takes the total unemployed in the U.S. to 14.7M, and brings the National Unemployment Rate to 9.5%.  Of those, 4.4M (or 30%) have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. 

There are lighter sides to those statistics as well.  It was only a 0.1 percentage point change from May, showing that a lot of those unemployed (312k of them) have found new jobs.  June may have been down from the month prior, but it was still a little up from April.

There’s certainly a fight out there, and it’s stronger than ever.  As an agency professional, I felt it in the passion of every new business pitch.  From an outsider, even one not looking for a new gig just yet, the fierce competition among that mob of unemployed is enough to surge anyone (even modestly motivated) towards (perhaps) the unknown.

While part of me still mourns belonging to the agency I no longer contribute to, another part of me is refreshed.  Exhilarated.  Confident.  And, for the first time since graduating from college and moving South, free to go and do whatever fate allows.

When you ask most anyone if they watch tv, you’ll either hear, “a little” (followed by a list of programs they like) or a little more rarely, “no” (also, oddly enough, followed by a short list of programs that they like). While not many are admitting to being viewers, if you talk about a show, you’re likely to get an opinion (good or bad).

While you might not be able to tell today, since I don’t get to watch much (any?) tv outside of Sprout, I’ve always been a super-fan. Okay.. An addict, even.  And you’d never know it by my recollections of commercials, programming, jingles, and theme songs from my youth, but it was actually a challenge to watch tv in our house when I was growing up. 

Being better parents than I am, mine tried their best to restrict my and my sister’s viewing habits. They went to great lengths to try to keep me in check, but I’ve always had a knack at getting around obstacles. As any normal kid, that included finding ways of getting around my parents’ disapproval of my first vice.

Before the days of parental controls built into televisions (and equipment), my mother watched closely as we selected programs and monitored how much time we spent with the box. When she went back to work in my youth, my parents actually put timers on the two TV’s in the house to keep them off before they returned from work. A good idea in theory, except that they were external timers, so my sister and I just unplugged them. (Note to parents: even the short, young kids with sweet, innocent faces aren’t dumb.. or innocent.)

Before I started school, the only shows I remember watching are Sesame Street, Romper Room, Mr. Rogers or Pinwheel (ok, I only remember the theme song) in the morning. Of course, we also watched M.A.S.H. after dinner. In elementary school, my parents became relatively early adaptors of cable. We got the equipment once lines were secured underground in our neighborhood (maybe, to my skeptical and conservative-spending father, finally making it not a fad and worth a look-see). But at basic entry in the early 80’s, it really added nothing memorable for a kid to watch for a few years (lots of cartoons and infomercials, but nothing unique or original..). Nickelodeon changed that when it brought “You Can’t Do That on Television” south from Canada, but I was in the 4th grade when that happened (which maybe says a lot about my “nothing unique or original” memory).

I remember when that program started in particular, only partially because of my life-long addiction. Having unplugged the timer so many times and seen a thousand promotional commercials, I was excited to see the first episode but knew that the timing of the first-air (during homework-time) was something that my mother would never allow. So, I told her it was homework: to watch this ground-breaking new series! (Maybe I was foreseeing my future?) But even though she had to have known I was lying, for some unfathomably uncharacteristic reason, she let me watch it.* (Maybe she was foreseeing my future, too?)

I wasn’t as lucky when a few other favorite programs launched. While my parents watched “Family Ties” with my sister and I, I was also sneaking off to watch a few extra shows on the TV in their room. There I was, crouching by the tv, the volume turned down nearly to mute, watching “Cheers” or “Bosom Buddies.” They were both forbidden in our house, of course. Why? Because my parents didn’t want us to think anyone spends that much time in a bar (we had a wet-bar in our living room), nor wanted me to think that men dress up as women (we lived just outside of San Francisco.. and, again, I was allowed to watch M.A.S.H., so Jamie Farr/Clinger had already gotten me over any oddity of that).

So, yes, kids.. It can happen! A little vice turned into a passion that actually became a career. (Media and television, not cross-dressing and drinking.)

*Thanks, mom.

I’ll admit it: “Marie Claire” fell off my radar for a while. After they had some circulation woes that put them under a microscope a few years ago, we (media folk) kind of talked them to death. We love drama, but it was almost too much negative. After a while, I lost interest. 

Today, their circulation headlines aren’t looking much better. Looking at first-half 2008 numbers, they’re down significantly in newsstand sales (-12.1%!) which is almost 30% of their circulation. Although their % of paid subscriptions is climbing through initiatives they’ve invested in (a gift with purchase program with a major beauty brand and online subscriber notices, beyond transition from newsstand to subscriber growth with inbook cards). It could be more organic, but still, not a bad tactic on their part. They only missed their 950M rate base once in the last six months according to their most recent ABC statement; again, not bad, considering the “less down is the new flat” theory floating around magazine circulations these days.

So when they came to KC for a visit a few weeks ago, I was interested to hear an update.

I got the general overview of the book and the vast changes that have happened since I’d picked it up last. It looked good. But it wasn’t the page layout or the section headers that caught my attention. There was something hanging out there that struck me: the magazine’s pick for a new fashion director, Project Runway’s and ex-”Elle” Fashion Director/Editor-at-Large, Nina Garcia.

Celebrities sell; it’s an obvious truth demonstrated by the number of not only celebs on covers, but directly in titles (Oprah, Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray). Garcia’s no Paula Abdul (just in size of fame.. in other ways, Abdul’s no Garcia!), but she’s still known for her judging skills on “Project Runway.” (That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. I’m, admittedly, not a viewer of the show.)

Garcia only started after Labor Day, and already, “Marie Claire” has put on the gloves. While “Elle” has the CW Network working on “Stylista” for an October debut, “Marie” now has “Running in Heels” set to premier in March 2009. It’s a weekly reality show that will follow 15 fashion editors and staff of the magazine and air on The Style Network. It’ll be interesting (for us media geeks) to see how they compare in ratings once they both have had a few weeks of air time (with “Stylista” having a slight Broadcast advantage over “Running”).

Being more of a magazine consumer (personally) these days than a television junkie (a sad side-effect of having kids; I no longer watch much programming that I’m interested in. ..No offense to SproutTV), I’m more interested to see if there is a halo effect that helps “Marie Claire”’s circulation. I wonder if it will help rebound newsstand sales or if this does anything to help their subscriber base increase more organically. While not many publications have released editorial calendars for 2009, I suspect that their editorial plans will include some sort of self-promotions.

This’ll be my kind of “March madness.” Can’t wait!

Not all conversations are the same. Or at least, they don’t have to be. 

Every day, we talk about the same things that we talked about yesterday. We spark various levels of mutual interests with people that are ultimately similar to us. It’s not our fault. We’re just pre-positioned that way.

By default, we’re pushed towards sameness in our own personal versions of normalcy. Our household incomes afford us the ability to live in this or that neighborhood. Our educations, or lack-there-of, bind us through employment. Goals and ambitions pull us into similar friendship groups (business clubs, PTAs and even the blogs we read). While what we are closest to day in and day out is vastly similar to our own reflection, there’s a bigger pool out there of people that, really, are nothing even remotely close to you. My best quick example that usually comes to a shocker within groups I usually find myself faced with with is this: according to various sources linking back to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average household brings in just under $50.1k and supports roughly 2.5 people. A deeper look into that shows the average home contains just under 2 adults and just over 1 child, so quite a few single parent homes with multiple kids.

While this seems obvious enough, you’d be amazed by how many conversations about target audiences and consumer groups wind up with various conclusions of the same rather self-centric mind-frame: “the focus group of one.” This is when a person in the conversation (It’s been me at times. I’ll admit it), uses themselves at the example of why (not) a target will (not) do/think/feel/eat/buy something. It ultimately ends with the grandest of all irrefutable arguments, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well. Okay. But, you weren’t the topic of this conversation, were you,” is always what I’m left wanting to say.

Instead, what I challenge is this: Screw not talking to strangers.

While it goes against everything that our mothers taught us, we do meet the strange (or otherwise, people unlike us). In the middle. In between. In the bathroom. At a gas station. In an airport. In a bar, in an unfamiliar part of town. 

Take advantage of that awkward “elevator situation” and have a real conversation. Not about the weather. But about life. Family. Love. Loss. ..A real conversation. Share: honestly, openly and, most importantly, forgivingly. And then, do it again.

You might not only learn something new about how a bigger part of the population lives (remember, household is under $50.1k.. individual incomes are under $20k.. suits are out..), but you might find that one of your favorite conversations of the month wound up being with someone that didn’t speak much English at all.