MarCom Professional

Further evidence that consumer confidence is taking a beating emerged this week and made me think more about what this will mean for marketers operating in a depressed commercial environment.

My previous post alluded to the need to adjust marketing and PR strategies to take into account the fact that none of us are going to feel particularly flush in the next 12 months, and how this might impact on the habits of the great British public. I had dinner with some friends earlier this week and realised that talk of us spending more time at home (and less time spending money on the high street) isn't just theory - it's happening now!

Two out of three have spent the last two weekends at home, one has installed Sky Broadband so that she can download music and movies and, she says, order takeaway. More...

I got a bit of a shock last night. Before attending last night's Convergence Conversation, held at Ingenious Media, I thought the outlook was bleak for businesses of all shapes, sizes and sectors; I left with a real sense of the challenge the marketers face in trying to reach a nation that will be forced, in the coming months, to save rather than spend.

On one thing all last night's attendees agreed on, evidence of the slowdown is already there for all to see. Consumers are finding it harder every day to justify spending their diminishing funds on anything other than the essentials, and the situation will worsen in the coming months. More...

Nielsen's new figures point to a significant decline in ad spend. According to the figures, ad spend has declined by 5.28% in Q2 of this year and, if we're to believe the figures, we must all be shuffling a little uncomfortably in our seats. For the first time, for a long time, marketers will find themselves under scrutiny from within their organisations, to justify the value of their investment.

In the course of our lives as technology PRs, we meet lots and lots of marketing managers / directors and executives who geniunely feel trapped by the status quo. They stick to what they believe are tried and tested methods because it's a) all they know and b) just too hard to persuade their board of directors that it's high time something changed. More...

Tracking the decline of the U.S. print news industry is coming somewhat of a grim pastime.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) has just released its annual census in the States. It makes for depressing reading where traditional media is concerned and clearly shows the decline in the industry, as indicated by the reduction of staff numbers – especially in ethnic minorities. Currently, 52,600 people work full-time in newspaper newsrooms in the U.S. A figure that hasn’t been so low since 1984.

To add to that, Steve Outing, editor of the ‘Stop The Presses’ column on the Editor and Publisher mag, explains why he’s stopped buying print editions of his favourite media. More...