Just a quick heads-up on tomorrow's Media7 recording, in which the main panel will discuss the state of the advertising industry, which is facing two significant challenges: the short-term pressure of the economic crunch, and the longer-term changes being wrought by the internet economy.
Internet advertising stood out in the Advertising Standards Authority's turnover figures for 2008 -- both its share of the overall advertising market and its dollar spend were up sharply last year (the only other form of advertising to rise rather than fall by either measure was "addressed mail").
In the US, newspaper advertising fell 16.4% last year, raising the spectre of mass newspaper failures.
Meanwhile, the crunch has seen a significant fall in local mainstream media advertising income this year -- and, naturally in agency turnover. TVNZ is shedding jobs, and at least one Auckland agency has gone to a nine-day fortnight to avoid redundancies, by agreement with staff.
Things are, clearly, kind of tricky.
Our panel is John Schofield of the Internet Bureau, NBR advertising report Hazel Phillips and Consortium's Darryl Parsons
Later in the show, we'll also look to get something new out of the Auckland v Wellington culture debate with Tommy Honey and Simon Prast.
If you'd like to join us after 5pm at The Classic in Queen Street tomorrow, hit reply and let me know.
---
An example of clever internet marketing. This YouTube video, in which Vanilla Ice says sorry:
Is related to Virgin Mobile's Right Music Wrongs site, which is very clever and most diverting.
(Note: I left the YouTube embed poking out like that because when I resized it, it went all strange. Hey, it's my blog ...)
---
Another example. New Zealand Warriors sponsor Vodafone would like people to know about its Vodafone One Tribe mobi-site, at which provides results, schedules, live commentary, downloads, NRL news and access to a Player of the Day competition. A customer would only need to navigate to http://onetribe.mobi or text mobi to 499 to receive the link directly to his or her mobile, paying $1 a day on the day she or she uses it, with a daily allowance of 10MB.
To this end, a company working for Vodafone has offered me two double passes to the Warriors' home game against the Broncos on Saturday night. I have declared myself the "winner" of one of those passes (sometimes you just have to do these things). But the other -- value $100 -- is up for grabs to one of you.
I will award the pass to whosoever writes **the best haiku about Stacey Jones** in the discussion for this post. Other forms of verse will be considered on merit. Ill pick the winner tomorrow morning. Go, brave souls, create for commerce!