Smart money on social media in fight for ad dollars

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This was published 12 years ago

Smart money on social media in fight for ad dollars

By Harold Mitchell

After the long summer break it's back to work for media and marketing people - buoyed up with new year's resolutions, no doubt.

Mine is ''don't waste a minute''.

As always, this column is helped by Charlie, who has been so clever at picking the big economic trends over the last four years and you will be pleased to know he sees a good year ahead for Australia.

But the big question around the office in the first week back is always: ''Where did you go over the break?'' Charlie went to Moggs Creek and stayed at his holiday place called ''the Chicken Shed''.

''That's a clever name,'' I said. ''Was it a real chicken shed?''

''What do you mean 'was'?''

Louise, on the other hand, hired a hand-painted Kombi, went to Nimbin to rediscover her lost youth only to find that she had no recollection of the joint - which, of course, is not conclusive evidence that she had never been there before.

Back in the '70s it was quite the thing to lose a day or two but, in this millennium and particularly in this new year, the smart people won't waste a minute.

Recent research shows that 46 per cent of our waking life is spent consuming media. That's 51 hours, 48 minutes per week for the average Australian - just on seven hours a day. We know about the 20-plus hours a week of television and nearly two hours a day with the radio but the big one is the internet, where the average Australian will spend nearly two hours a day this year and where advertisers will spend 20 per cent of their dollars.

This year the media companies will fight for ad dollars that will continue to grow and while overall advertising is expected to grow at 3 per cent-plus, the Asia-Pacific region's market is expected to grow at a massive 38 per cent, driven by China, India and a booming Indonesia.

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Australia will still maintain the highest amount spent on ads as a percentage of gross domestic product in the world, but it will be driven by the digital growth.

Minutes count in this great new digital change because we are all connected 24/7, individual to individual. We can pick our customers and build our relationships one by one by engaging directly via screens and speakers everywhere - in our pockets and handbags, at the office, in the pub - even in the corner of the lounge room on a television.

The Isobar/Carat global report shows that by 2020 80 per cent of all media will be digital. The internet will obviously be a big part of it but expanding digital TV and digital radio will have their share of the action as well.

One of the greatest challenges this year will be exploiting the potential of social media more fully. Coca-Cola now spends more than 20 per cent of its ad dollars on social media. The companies that really get this booming area of marketing will move their products like never before.

In this US election year, we would do well to remember how Barack Obama was able to generate $US700 million ($656.8 million) in campaign funds four years ago by sending out individual phone messages across the US and the world. The people responded. His current social media campaign has raised $US1 billion for his re-election war chest.

What Obama and Coke have at their disposal is available to everyone. They're not wasting a minute. Why should you?

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