Content Summary

Annus Horribillis.

It was Queen Elizabeth II who popularised this phrase, which is Latin for ‘horrible year’.  In late 1992, after Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson split up, Windsor Castle caught fire, Princess Anne divorced Mark Phillips, the tell-all biography ‘Diana Her True Story’ was published,

QE2 stated that: “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.”

There are likely to be more than a few marketing and advertising professionals from around the globe saying the same thing about the year from October ‘08 to September ‘09.

This section sets the scene for the hypothesis that the recession has created a structural change in the way consumers engage with media and the way the industry buys media.  Online advertising has defied the recession and Television and Newspapers have been particularly hard hit.

What Can we Expect from the Future.

The recession has given us a chance to reassess what’s worked for the good years, throw out the stuff that didn’t, or that we can’t measure the success of, and hit the restart button.

Don’t expect gross media spend to increase any time soon, due to the disinflationary aspect of online (simply put: buy more for less) and watch out for online to take over radio and magazine.

POST PRESENTATION:  Here’s an interesting article from Australian Financial Review that came out following the presentation.  It updates previously pessimistic growth forecasts for the Australian media sector.

Who’s looking online?

Some interesting (hopefully!) stats about the growth of the online sector.

So What to do?

Here are nine for your ‘To Do’ list.  I covered them off more fully in the presentation.  You should have been there