Newsletter Archive - Editor's Corner
Lost In The Hi-tech Glitz
12/10/2009 - We all know that 2009 has been a horrible year for all advertising media. And in this issue of YP Talk, in the Local Search/IYP article, we presented reports that indicate that 2009 will even be a bad year for online advertising, too (this year is on track to be the first down year for online ads since 2002, the first since the dot.com bubble years).
Can this be really be happening? Wasn’t the Internet supposed to be the new Nirvana especially since print Yellow Pages are dead, aren’t they? At least that is what a number of uninformed print haters are wishing for and want you to believe – like this one (link):
- For publishers: It’s really difficult to assemble a print Yellow Pages even once a year. Listings, multiple changes in graphics, last second changes in business addresses or telephone numbers, maybe even a business name change – there are a lot of things that need to come together at a single point in time to make the Yellow Pages books the accurate, high quality products that they are. Getting all of this stuff right even just once a year requires great diligence and coordination across the entire publisher organization – sales, production, graphics, suppliers, even CLEC telcos that need to feed the publisher with correct, current listings.
Let’s now take that to the online world with even more on-the-fly changes in content, and you make the task exponentially that much more difficult. It’s tough to do right, and also not cheap, despite all of the technology you can throw at it to mechanize things.
- For users: No matter what you have heard, the internet products are not easier and quicker to use for the average person. Sure, they are a lot sexier, more exciting, and cool than a boring print book. It is almost James Bond-ish when you have one of these devices in your hands or at your finger tips. But until we can take all of the data that is in a book (which we just noted is difficult to assemble), find a way to efficiently, seamlessly move it online, and then find come up with an interface that allows users to easily navigate it, online is not going to overcome print in ease of use or quality of information any time soon. At this point online has not evolved as the solution to all of mankind’s woes, especially the average user. Not yet.
- For businesses: Internet advertising is cheaper than print advertising. It’s a fact. But it is also a fact that a $300 online ad program is probably also not going to have the same impact on that small business as a display ad in a print phone book. It can’t. It is so hip that someone in Singapore can browse websites for local pizza businesses in Hoboken, NJ, but is that really going to yield any more sales for that pizzeria?? I think not. That pizzeria at best draws from a 10 mile radius near them. And all of this fantasy about clicking on your mobile device so you can jump off a crowded interstate to pick up a pizza on the way home in a community you don’t know from a business you’ve never visited before is just that – pure fantasy. Technically it may be doable, but it isn’t practical. So if I’m an established business, tell me again why I’m going to pull all of my money from the print products that give me the business leads that make me successful, so I can go play on the Internet?
All of this adds up to the stark reality that for online only publishers the business model is still under construction and can be just as easily impacted by a tough economy. Case in point: look past the glitzy marketing campaigns and technology and you will find that these online publishers can’t hire and retain enough sales people. In fact they are churning through them faster than your local burger joint. Why? Their sales people cannot make an adequate living especially when compared with their predominantly print publisher counterparts. It takes a whole bunch of those smaller Internet packages to match the revenue that even just one large print ad generates. If you don’t believe me, go to www.Indeed.com, an aggregator of open job postings, and you will see the online only publishers in constant pursuit for new sales reps.
I am not suggesting that all hope is lost for online advertising? Not at all. It too should rebound when the economy comes back. But in the interim, online, like all other advertising media is going to suffer in a tough down economy.
Part 2 of this commentary will run in next month’s issue……