E-MEDIA edges Mass Media

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)’s recent report “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2009-2013” says worldwide advertising spending will reach $421 billion in 2009.This is a serious drop in ad spending as the total stood $479 billion in 2008.

The ad industry is expected to start recovering only in 2011 and yet the projected figure of $467 billion for 2013 is still lesser than 2008 total which means tougher times are ahead.

Not so surprisingly, Television stands at top maintaining status quo while print has declined and expected to decline further, while Internet advertising is expected to have a positive outlook.

Interestingly,Video games advertising, although in the last position, has grown considerably and is expected to grow further proving its the not the least among the ad medium lot.If one had followed the last US elections,they would be aware that Obama’s ads featured in Burnout Paradise and Madden 09.

Moreover recession has forced companies to be more strict on ROI from advertising ,which has lead to a rise in BTL campaigns.

Vibhor who works for a marketing firm tells me that, recession has indeed helped them.Since many companies are favoring BTL campaigns , they are tuning towards cost effective marketing solutions provided by his company rather than mass media.

With the amount of clutter rising in all types of media, its indeed a major challenge for firms to design their media mix within their promotional budget. Market segmentation has become very critical than ever before

Chrome OS? Oh Yes….

We knew it was coming .It was just a matter of time.And now the time has come.Unlike for many others, it was not a surprise for me,As I had blogged about it earlier.However i was indeed surprised that instead of extending android to laptops,they are developing Chrome as the OS.

When Google officially announced it ,everyone was like “Google to crush MS,windows RIP” and all other stuff.

Its plain stupidity. why??

simple reason- Chrome is not a substitute for Windows nor Mac,because Windows is a client /server based OS while Chrome is browser based.Unlike Windows or Mac for that matter, Chrome would be useless without 24/7 internet connection.I can give you another hundred reasons in the same lines citing safety,security,stability,support etc etc.

So MS need not worry? NO it should ,yes this is indeed a big move by Google and yes it has indeed increased the competition between the two giants. MS has also put big bets on cloud computing and is developing its own browser OS (MS GAZELLE) and its hold on it will be threatened by Google Chrome.

But net book prizes may not go down drastically,Windows wont die and MS wont go bankrupt.Ironically since Chrome is going to be free,its the Linux net books which will take a hit which again is debatable.

While going thru the discussions in the web,one comment had summed it up well

“Chrome will create its own niche market of Browser OS and will monopolize it” I think this is true.Google has indeed revolutionized many areas.And if succeeds,Chrome OS will also be a revolution but there wont be a OS war at least with windows.

Btw this cartoon make more sense than ever before :P

B.T.M. BITES

Severe time crunch,limited electric supply and almost a decade old desktop are my top 3 excuses for the brief hibernation of blog.

Anyways let me quickly run through the things i wanted to blog but couldn’t.(in random order)

• Bing is doing better than expected but Google still rules as the default search engine,but when comes to niche search Bing may shine better and since Bing now throws up Twitter search results, which may or may not be better than Google results but definitely different from it.
• Some brands just live forever ,like MJ(not me  but the original moonwalker).
  • Mass Media had a good week as  MJ’s “mystery death” was “breaking news”  for more than 2 days,tribute stories,special shows,continuous coverage,cover story…imagine the ad revenues for that two days.i heard even newspapers got sold out in some parts of US (newspapers are on verge of becoming historical artifacts esp. in US)
  • MJ’s sudden death also resulted in sudden surge in the sales of his albums.
  • “I Was At Glasto 09 When Jacko Died” T shirts were being sold the very next day of his death (i am sure the idea did not come from an MBA marketing)
  • But some MBA’s are already drawing up business plans to make his Neverland ranch into a music museum cum theme park which would “pop” profits. I am sure  this MJ mania will continue foe some more time because he was not just a pop singer  but a  iconic brand himself.
• When the world was watching US going Ga Ga over the new smart phones, a startup in Madurai(my hometown ) has  rolled out Red Chery , a Indian alternative for Black Berry.  Red Chery fetches corporate emails to your mobile which is what Black Berry is famous for.
  • Although the firm  says “Red Chery stands for 'Revolutionary (red) Change Enabled Reach for You’ it is obvious that it wants to be associated with  Blackberry one way or another
  • Rajiv and me have had many discussions about this type of branding using the opposites of the existing brand – (black-red;berry-cherry) –we think it will work if a brand wants to remain as a follower acting as an alternative (usually low priced ) –ideally it should be termed ‘reverse branding’ since it already has another definition, we could call it opposite branding or mirror branding(same but reversed).
• Videocon has a renewed logo,which I personally think is  not suitable for a consumer electronics company but looks like logo of a health food brand.
• Sony’s Walkman was named as the top music invention of last 50 years which is  like the first generation of portable media player
• I tried the new Opera.. nothing great.you can skip it… i recommend  the latest FireFox 3.5 RC.

Last but not least …

• Twitter’s potential was unleashed when US Govt requested the micro blogging site to postpone its weekly maintenance as Twitter was the only source of real time updates on Iran elections where news channels and other traditional media sources were restricted.Looks like Twitter has arrived….