advertising

Online audio ad rep firm Katz 360 Sales is going global. Katz Media Group announced yesterday that its digital division is expanding to be a "global interactive ad network" offering "local" and "location-based" audio and video capabilities across "all platforms."

The division will be completely rebranded and rebuilt, according to Katz, over the next few months, with a new brand name and an international sales team. Mort Greenberg, who was recently appointed to President of Katz 360 Sales, will head up the transition.

Meanwhile, Triton Digital announced a new partnership with OXIS Media, who will represent Triton to market its streaming, measurement, loyalty and ad-insertion products to media in the UK and Ireland. OXIS Media has engaged leading radio futurologist James Cridland for the task.

EMarketer's new study shows the time U.S. adults spend daily using mobile devices (not including phone calls) has more than doubled in the past two years. And in 2012 alone, mobile device usage looks to grow nearly 52%, to about 82 minutes per day.

Last year "non-talk" mobile device use passed print as the fourth most-used major media.

As 2012 is shaping up, the ranking (TV is top, then online, radio, mobile, and print) stays the same. But while television and online are growing in use, broadcast radio and (especially) print are slipping. Even online (using non-mobile computers) is seeing the pace of its growth slow. 

"Mobile, by contrast, is growing quickly from a small base — and growth in time spent is also being boosted by fast uptake of smartphones and tablets, which have still penetrated only a minority of all consumers," eMarketer explains. "As more U.S. consumers continue to acquire these devices, and current owners shift more of their digital activities to mobile and portable devices, mobile is grabbing an ever-greater share of time with all media — potentially at the expense of faster online growth."

Ad dollars, as we've seen, have not caught up to these shifts in media usage. While U.S. adults will average 11.7% of their media time on mobile devices, just 1.6% of ad spending will go there.

Read eMarketer's summary here.

TargetSpot says its new study shows Internet radio listeners "are more tolerant of digital audio ads than broadcast AM/FM audiences." Parks Associates conducted the study, "Attitudes Towards Digital Audio Advertising," for TargetSpot (which is a digital audio ad network). You can download a summary of the study here.

The study found even when it came to ads that Internet radio listeners didn't find interesting or important, "they are more accepting of them and less likely to stop listening than are listeners to traditional Broadcast AM/FM Radio." TargetSpot also says its study shows most Net radio "listeners don’t mind ads if they perceive they will receive something of interest in return," mobile listeners are "amenable to receiving ads," and they're mostly fine with targeted advertising.

The study summary is here.

If the ad-buying community could only witness radio's achievements when it comes to mobile, certainly they'd embrace the medium much more enthusiastically. If they could only see, and interact with, the great apps for smartphones and tablets, perhaps they'd see and hear the magic that makes the vast majority of Americans tune in to radio on a daily (or at least weekly) basis.

Well, of course they can access all of this, as can anyone with a smartphone or tablet. Yet only 42% of ad professionals listened to radio during a recent one-day study, while 80% of consumers did so. And Fred Jacobs thinks this disparity could be at the root of radio getting short-changed on ad campaign buys. And, he suggests being proactive in making these ad guys aware of what radio's doing on mobile platforms.

"If the (radio) industry sits back and assumes they (ad buyers) will figure it out on their own, shame on us," writes Jacobs.

In his blog, he suggests the NAB give every key ad industry professional a tablet pre-loaded "with the very best mobile apps from some of America’s best and most diverse stations, shows, and personalities." Jacobs suggests twenty such radio apps (including Pandora, iHeartRadio, and broadcaster apps produced by Jacobs Media division jacAPPS) that show "radio belongs on the hottest devices of our time, and that the industry is leaning forward when it comes to embracing mobile."

Read Jacobs' blog here.

Advertisers know that today's technology affords them greater accountability of the results of their ad buys. They've come to expect measurement tools and data that enables them to assess the effectiveness of various media platforms in their campaigns. They can very closely track how many people were exposed to their messages, see how consumers respond, adjust their offers or targeting, and assess the campaigns effectiveness in real time. (We recommend you listen to the "Identifying Opportunities for Advertisers in Internet Radio" panel from our recent RAIN Summit Dallas here for more on this.)

This obviously seems like something of a short-coming for a one-way, broadcast medium like AM/FM in this regard. Inside Radio reports today, "until the rollout of people meter-based ratings, radio’s quarterly diary ratings data put the medium at a disadvantage." The spread of PPM to more and more markets will help broadcasters (and, to that end, so will making this data available to "media modelers," as Arbitron is reportedly doing). But what broadcast radio is lacking is the trackability of the Internet -- a fact which underscores the need for broadcasters to more urgently embrace Internet technology.

But as the news source reports, radio's lack of "trackability" has indeed cost them advertising dollars from ZipCar, the short-term car rental service located in urban markets across the country, even as evidence shows its radio ads were effective. "ZipCar spent about $2 million on radio ads during the second quarter," and "revenue jumped 16% and consumer awareness of their unique rental model also increased," reports Inside Radio. Yet, they're discontinuing AM/FM advertising.

"The biggest challenge for anyone, not just Zipcar, with radio, first of all, terrestrials are really hard to track," Inside Radio quotes ZipCar CEO Scott Griffith telling investors. "You can track a little better on streaming but even at that, getting attribution directly to radio is hard — and so we faced that same issue... It doesn’t mean we wouldn’t go back to it someday, but we wouldn’t do it the same way and we want a better way to attribute the results more directly to where radio came in."

You can read Inside Radio free today here.

At last week's RAB NAB Radio Show in Dallas, Larry Rosin and Edison Research showed video interviews they'd conducted with media buyers, planners, and executives about broadcast radio's (and webcasters') digital initiatives.

At least it's good to know where you stand, right?

Edison asked these professionals about the role that radio can play in a multi-media ad buy, how they perceive the level of digital expertise of the radio reps they encounter, specifically about radio streams and web sites, about Pandora in particular, and about the data stations can give back to clients that advertise on digital channel.

The interview subjects are pretty bluntly honest with their opinions, and that's a good thing. And, they're not 100% negative. But they do give broadcasters a really clear view of how they need to learn and execute if they hope to maintain dominance in new media.

"The buyers of today are looking for the mass and response that radio elicits, but they are equally looking for measurability, personalization, efficiency and trackability," Rosin wrote. "Radio has to continue on a parallel path of innovation to provide these items to advertisers or simply watch its portion of the total advertising pie continue to slowly diminish."

At RAIN Summit Dallas last week, Michael Theodore of the IAB moderated a wonderful panel dicussion ("Identifying Opportunities for Advertisers in Internet Radio") with digital media buyers, specifically about radio and webcasting. We'll feature highlights of that discussion in RAIN soon (and, we've put audio of the panel on SoundCloud -- see the right-hand margin of RAIN).

View the Edison interviews here.