The Magazine Publishers of America released their quarterly report of print ad spending in magazines for the first quarter of 2008, and the results aren't pretty. As compiled by the Publishers Information Bureau (PIB), 12 categories make up 85% of print ad spending, and of those 12 categories, only 4 saw an increase in ad spending during the first quarter of 2008 vs. the first quarter of 2007.
Food and food products increased by 29.1%, retail increased by 8.3%, public transportation, hotels and resorts increased by 6% and financial, insurance and real estate increased by 1.7%.
Interestingly, only three categories saw an increase in ad pages during the first quarter of 2008: food and food products up by 19.4%, retail up 1.8% and media and advertising up 1.1%.
The struggling U.S. economy is being blamed for the decline in print ad spending. What do you think? Is this a temporary drop or a sign of a significant change in advertising investment strategy?
I think companies have to get more creative about their ad placement as media becomes more democratized. Maria Palma recently wrote a post about how vogue was like 75% advertising and my question is why do I want to subscribe to a book of advertisements? I can just as easily flip through it while I'm a the check out stand in the grocery store. There is so much noise these days in mass media, people are inundated with so many messages daily, we are finding ways to filter those messages out. I was reading a discussion recently where people are using plug-ins to block online ads. Creativity in placement to counteract the creative avoidance.
Posted by: Kimberlee Morrison | April 16, 2008 2:31 AM | Permalink to Comment