If you work in media, marketing, or advertising, it’s time to innovate and there is no time to waste.
That’s the message from several directions today, and now we are beginning to see real-world results, as companies adapt to the new constrictions.
Sarah Jerde at Adweek reports that The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s Group are now offering clients an additional incentive to advertise in their print pages. They are guaranteeing that the ads placements will work.
The two News Corp.-owned publications will offer an unusual guarantee to print advertisers who take out an ad between April 1 and June 30, the company will tell clients today.
The ad must achieve at least a 70% recall rate, a benchmark measured by Research and Analysis of Media, a third-party international research firm. If it doesn’t, those advertisers will be offered the same-size ad and placement for free within two weeks of the original ad’s run date.
I will note that recall is not the same as generating goodwill or driving people to the store with your ads. A car wreck of an ad might get perfect recall and do nothing but damage to an otherwise decent company.
Nevertheless, I like the initiative.
“I want to do something that’s meaningful and benefits as many partners as possible,” said Josh Stinchcomb, global chief revenue officer of The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s Group. “We need solutions right now that can actually move the needle for them from a business perspective,” a straightforward offer without any “complexity” and “nuance” to complicate it, he added.
Ad rates for the Journal vary. A standard, full-page, black-and-white ad cost $277,200 last year, according to a 2019 rate base.
For what it is worth, Adpulp has no printed pages but we do sell sponsored content slots for $500 per article. Inquire within.
2020 Outlook Not Good
Barron’s reported on a new survey released last Friday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
IAB asked 390 media buyers, media planners, and brand executives about their U.S. advertising plans for the rest of 2020. The group represents 650 companies that work in digital advertising and marketing.
Nearly a quarter have already paused all advertising spending through the second quarter. Another 46% are reducing their budgets.
Of the survey group, 44% say the impact of the current slowdown will be “substantially” worse than in the 2008-09 crisis.
People Might Pause to Read A Print Ad
With a mouse in your hand, you’re not in reading posture. You’re in an information processing posture. When you’re in an information processing position, you do not prioritize ads. Ads are things to skip and skipping them has never been easier thanks to ad blocking and incessant scrolling behavior.
Ad makers are trained to created “stoppers.” The thinking is an ad has to stop or interrupt your behavior and then quickly turn your attention to the pitch. It works much better in print than it does in broadcast or online. In print, a full-page ad is hard to miss. You can choose to scan it or skip it, but it’s hard to miss. That’s almost never true online because we are conditioned to click and scroll. Words and design on paper are different. On paper, they have a chance.
In related news, here are some print ads that I made in 2018. I didn’t make any in 2019.