Feb
14
Dion Chang: PR is the new advertising
February 14, 2010 | 1 Comment
Earlier this week a couple of us attended the Dion Chang presentation at GIBS where he presented some of the findings of his Flux Trend Review.
Taking into account the whole social media phenomenon and the way traditional publishing (both print and online) was being forced to adapt, his research concluded that PR was likely to be the new advertising.
i.e. consumers don’t react to banners or billboards or passive advertising. They want to be engaged by people within their communities.
As a shareholder in a publishing company which derives its income from advertising this is obviously a big thing to get our heads around. If we serve an advert to 10000 people then we serve something that is tangible. If we start being an outlet for PR campaigns its very difficult to measure that…
We serve press releases via our industrial titles. I couldn’t turn around to those people and command advertorial rates for an online offering.
By the same token how does a PR company value what it is doing if it is effectively buying space in the media? It loses a lot of its tactical appeal.
I dunno – I don’t buy this thing that traditional advertising will ever die (and that includes Pay-Per-Click, print, billboard etc).
My two cents:
1. Advertising as a whole will become cheaper. I get such a kick when I see a Google ad leaderboard with my name right next to something like Standard Bank. My R200 versus their massive budget and yet we’re standing right next to eachother in front of consumers
2. New platforms are going to be rolled out with people able to advertise creative sites for people to advertise their offering. Think of the big Standard Bank banner down the side of Sandton City / Sandton Towers
3. Agencies and creative teams will be employed on far shorter contract basis to prevent people becoming stale. The demand will be constantly for new and more creative ad material. The client constantly is striving for more visibility / penetration
4. More and more platforms will become available making advertising more accessible to small businesses at far more competitive rates. Think things like blogs, Mxit, podcasts… for a small business the opportunities are already far greater than they were 5 or 6 years ago.
5. If more small businesses are advertising it makes them more competitive against larger counterparts
6. UNDECIDED: Are big publishers going to suffer more than small publishers who can be niche. Would you rather invest with a publication that nails your precise target market or hit up a big generic publisher and then query low response rates?
Would love to have some views on the subject – feel free to post them below.
