SI.com, Washingtonpost, Weather Top News, Sports Online Sales Organizations

Myers Survey of Advertising Executives Results

The top five online sales organizations among 25 news and sports websites measured in the sixth annual Myers Survey of Advertising Executives on Online Sales Organization Performanceare all associated with traditional media companies. SI.com is ranked number one with an Overall Performance Power Score of 60 (second highest Overall Performance Power Score across all 125 sites in our analysis behind only Google). Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive was ranked second in this category and fifth across all sites. Weather.com ranked third in the news and sports category and ranked ninth among all 125 sales organizations. Entrepreneur Media is fourth ranked followed by CBS Sports.

While online pure play News.com (CNET) sneaks into sixth place, CNN.com, Time.com, CBS News and USA Today round out the top ten among 25 news and sports sites evaluated. The sites range from news and sports television networks, newspaper and magazine websites, Reuters, Morningstar and pure-play websites like Weatherbug.com and CNET. News and sports websites fared well overall – three of the top ten rated web sales organizations across all 125 sites in the survey are in this category. Additional details are available at jackmyers.com.

Myers Power Scores provide a unique view of the overall performance of each site across all attributes, with attributes weighted according to their importance and influence on the media planning and buying process. These scores were used to determine the sales organizations that have the highest quality relationships with advertisers and media decision makers.

The Overall Performance Power Score attributes evaluated include:

• Sales Reps are responsive to my needs and interests
• Sales Reps have knowledge of product, content & competition
• Organization delivers on promises
• Organization offers valuable non-traditional opportunities
• Overall value of the relationship to you

• POWER SCORES: Among the top 10 ranked websites, each had significant increases in their Overall Performance Power Scores over 2006 with the exception of Weather.com (which last year ranked first among all online sales organizations). This illustrates that among those who are utilizing these News and Sports sites there is an increase in overall satisfaction with servicing and performance. WSJ.com was included in our Category Report on Business and Technology Sales Organizations. If included in this report, they would have ranked on a par with News.com (CNET).

• USAGE: Unlike some other categories (social networking sites, gaming and entertainment sites), usage of News and Sports sites as advertising vehicles remained flat from 2006 to 2007. ESPN.com was the only major site to enjoy a large increase in usage. Less than half of our client and agency respondents claimed to purchase media on ESPN.com in our 2006 study, while almost two thirds purchased media on the site in 2007. New York Times Digital and USAToday.com both had a decline year over year in stated usage.

• MEETING WITH SALES REP For Weather.com and About.com, overall Performance Power Scores were three times as high among those who met with a rep, on average, than those who did not meet with a rep: (64% vs. 20% for Weather.com and 32% vs. 10% for About.com). ESPN.com’s increased usage year over year is probably related to their increased presence in the marketplace – only 37% of our respondents had met with an ESPN.com rep in our 2006 study, while more than two thirds had met with a rep in the 2007 study. The only other major News and Sports sites that saw increases in meetings with reps year over year were CBS Digital Media and CNN.com. Again, across other categories we saw larger increases in sales rep penetration.

• AVERAGE ATTRIBUTE RATINGS: The average ratings for each attribute were higher for News and Sports sites than the average for Portals and Search engines. Across the five attributes rated for each website, knowledge of products, content and competition and responsiveness of sales reps rated higher on average across the 25 sites included in this category than the other attributes (47% top two box for both attributes).42% of our respondents gave a top two box rating for the organization delivering on promises(compared to 31% for portals and search engines). 34% gave a top two box rating foroverall value of the relationship to you, while only 31% gave a top two box rating for organization offers valuable non-traditional opportunities.

• OVERALL VALUE: WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive, ESPN.com, CBS Digital Media and USAToday.com all had large increases in the percentage of respondents who gave them a top two box rating on overall value of the relationship to you from 2006 to 2007. MSNBC.com was virtually flat on this attribute year over year. The only top ranked web site that experienced a decline year over year was Weather.com.

• ONLINE SPECIALISTS: Not surprisingly, those who spend less than 75% of their time focused on online media, in general, had higher Overall Performance Power Scores for news and sports websites. For example, the Overall Performance Power Score for ESPN.com among our respondents who spend less than 75% of their time with online media was 48% compared to 35% among those who spend more than 75% of their time with online media. For New York Times Digital the Overall Performance Power Score split was 46% versus 33% among online specialists. News and Sports is a category where clients, media planners and buyers may have relationships with television or print reps, which create a halo effect in the online space. For online pure plays, those relationships don’t exist.

Additional details are available at jackmyers.com.