A New Generation Marketer

Ten years ago, television, radio, newspaper, magazine, and yellow page advertisements all worked very well for companies big and small. Today, people have learned how to block out these traditional outbound marketing techniques. The days of interrupting people’s lives to shows a minute clip about your company or product are over. Instead of tuning into advertisements to learn about products, people are going online to find this out, and are using social networking sites to gain valuable input from peers and colleagues alike.

In the past year alone, traditional media outlets experienced drastic changes due to changing customer preferences and increased usage of the internet. To give an example, 293 newspaper companies shut down, eight magazines with circulation numbers over 1 million had to close shop, and 1,126 magazines in general closed down. Also, more than 10,000 jobs were lost in the radio industry, and over 100 television stations are reporting bankruptcies (Vocus Whitepaper). These staggering statistics show how hard of a hit traditional media took. Although the economy did take a huge plummet recently, advertising just wasn’t working enough to sustain these businesses.

Newspapers

It is quite obvious that writing on the Internet (blogging) is the new form of newspaper articles. “Blogs offered more opinions and provided more water cooler discussions. Never mind that the skill of reporting quickly became a lost art. Once, three or four sources were required for a newspaper to go with a story; now just one source is enough for a blogger to put it on the Web site and spur a heated debate” (Vocus Whitepaper). 293 newspapers shut down in the past year, and only 45 started up; nine of which were based online first. The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and a few other major newspapers experienced over 421 layoffs and buyouts (Vocus Whitepaper). If major, well-known newspapers are folding, what is in store for the ones still in existence? I think the best move for them is to move their publications online and be supported not by subscriptions, but by online advertisements. The Wall Street Journal is already doing this. This shift in the newspaper industry will be drastic, however many newspapers may decide to form partnerships with other news media companies to utilize many more resources. Also, people are used to getting information for free online, so people are not making sense of having to pay for a newspaper when they can get that same information for free online.

Magazines

“Magazines that struggled in 2009 will cease to be in 2010” (Vocus Whitepaper). With over 1,000 magazine companies shutting down, the realm of magazine readership is a very different environment today. Rebecca Bredholt, a managing editor of magazine content stated, “The current recession was like a naturally occurring brush fire. It got rid of dead wood. The green shoots we’ll see will be from online trade and association publications” (Vocus Whitepaper). Magazine companies will need to reconfigure their strategy to either focus on a more specific niche interest, or move to online publications instead. Personally, I have not subscribed to a magazine in many years. Instead, I use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs and news sites to get my information. This causes much less waste in paper, and is easier for me to filter through articles.

Television

According to a Vocus Media Research Group, approximately 100 television stations were affected and/or shut down due to massive bankruptcies. Julie Holley, a managing editor of television content at Vocus said, “So stations are continuing to broadcast through the bankruptcy while the parent organization gets back on its feet, meaning there is no obvious effect on what the viewers see.” Companies are no longer able to support high cost technologies and staff to fill every position they used to hold, resulting in lower quality broadcasts, and staff will hold a more varied role in the company. This overall will cause a strain in television companies, ultimately resulting in their demise unless they can find a way to sustain themselves using new technology and the Internet.

Radio

Radio stations alone experienced a revenue decrease of up to 15-20% in the past year, and 10,000 jobs were lost. A majority of this loss was from the largest owner of radio stations, Clear Channel. “To keep costs low, stations have been forced to run nationally syndicated shows like Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh in favor of original programming” (Vocus Whitepaper). Although radio stations realized a huge plummet in profits and employee losses, this medium is predicted to outlast all other types of media. They are predicted to continue to air shows on their Web sites and provide links to previously recorded material as well. This will help radio stations transition into the digital age which still maintaining their purpose. In addition, there will be more applications that will allow users to listen to specific radio stations. Radio and portable music devices, such as iPods and Zune will become very popular in 2010 as well. It seems that radio is adapting quite well with newer technologies and may be able to sustain a competitive advantage during this unstable time in the media industry. “Radio has always been known as a survivor. When television, and later, cable TV came about, radio’s demise was widely predicted. But radio adapted, became more specialized, and differentiated itself with a sense of localism” (Vocus Whitepaper).

While radio is looking to adapt to new technology, there is hope for newspapers as well. A company called NewsCred had developed an online source for users to build their own customized newspapers. Users are able to generate a professional0looking site which can include content of their interest. With a premium account, users can even create a news aggregator and opinion site as well. To create their preferential content, users specify which types of topics they are most interested in reading about, and NewsCred generates a feed of this information directly to their personalized site. Hence, the virtual newspaper, the new form of newspapers. This site also allows users to write editorials which can be featured on the front page of the virtual paper. Although this idea is a great revolution of the typical newspaper, NewsCred will face some tough competition; by iGoogle in particular. iGoogle is a new service by Google which allows registered users to have news feed widgets, much like that provided by NewsCred. Other custom news sites such as Meehive and Kosmix provide the same direct threat at iGoogle does for NewsCred. (Kincaid). It will be interesting to see how this new online virtual newspaper will change how news is processed, and if it can stand up against strong competition.