Have We Bottomed Out? - Steve Yanovsky-BBE - MediaBizBloggers

Maybe.

Depending on which economic pundit you listen to, we have already hit bottom, and we are beginning to level out, or, we will sometime in the second half of 2009, or it won't happen until 2010. But, regardless of when the recovery begins, there have been some profound changes on the media landscape that may last forever. Marketers have been, and in many cases, still are, going through unprecedented challenges to their business. Spending has been cut, or reduced dramatically. Every product and service category has felt the pinch, and many are still feeling it.

What does that mean for those of us in the media business? Well…it certainly isn't business as usual. There is pressure on our clients, and their clients, to make every dollar work harder than ever before. While that corporate point of view is likely never to change, if you really think about it, why should it? There's certainly nothing wrong with advertisers looking for a better return on their media investment.

What they have been pursuing is the chance to speak to their audience as close to one-to-one as they can. They are looking to focus their media spend in vehicles that minimize waste and bring their well honed message to the right people at the right time.

Digital video affords media planners and buyers the opportunity to invest their client's money in a medium that minimizes the audience waste that they are buying. It presents them with actual audience numbers instead of the estimates that they are used to accepting with their television buys. Also, because there is an ever increasing number of web sites, attracting audiences based on a combination of demographics, and in the case of many long tail sites, psychographics, they can buy the enriched audiences that they seek.

Look for this precision in buying to get more and more focused. Again, this very demanding year has put pressure on all marketing spending, and digital video removes much of the guess work from the process of identifying where the audience is.

So which way will the arrows be pointing at the end of the year, and into the next decade? According to a recent Communications Industry Forecast by private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, despite all the bad news, the media industry could be one of the fastest-growing economic sectors over the next five years. Not surprisingly, most of the growth won't be generated from traditional media, but instead result from areas like branded entertainment and the Internet.

Being in the media business we all tend to be glass half full people, so we assume that the second half of 2009 will be the turn around that we are looking for.

Steve Yanovsky is VP Marketing of BBE and can be reached at syanovsky@bbe.com

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