History of the past 100 years of advertising.

Whether your small business is based solely on the web, or if you have a brick and mortar store where you sell your goods and services it is extremely important to understand how technology has influenced successful marketing campaigns over the years. 

Ready for your history lesson?

Let’s start with radio. The first radio advertisements were simply announcements that benefited the owners of the stations. No money ever traded hands, however it didn’t take long until savvy business owners took advantage of this new medium. In 1922 Remik’s Music Store (based out of Seattle, WA) sponsored a program on KFC, a radio station that was partly owned by a Seattle based newspaper. Remik’s sponsored the radio show by promoting the program with large ads in the newspaper and invited people to buy songs that were just performed. Radio ads proved to be very effective compared to advertising in print alone, and even more so when owners combined both print and radio advertising. Soon, local DJs started to build reputations with their audience. Their listeners purchased the products or services that were mentioned by the on-air celebrity. Later, professionally produced spots included sound effects, background music, dialogue with numerous personalities, and jingles became an effective way of advertising to listeners. Studies showed that the quality of the commercials was just as important as the number of ads that they heard.

Television gives radio a run for it’s money. The first television advertisement was for a 20 second Bulova spot before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. It displayed an image of a clock superimposed on a map of the United States accompanied with a simple voice over that said “America runs on Bulova time.” (For anyone keeping score, the Phillies beat the Dodgers that day by a score of six to four). It wasn’t until 1990 until advertising on television became affordable to small businesses. Personal computers had advanced to the point where local broadcasters could use them for video production on local cable TV stations. Unlike radio, advertisers could represent their brand visually as well as with sound. Some ads, such as the Winston cigarettes commercials became so popular they ran for 20 years.

Television is still the dominant advertising medium today, Even though 50% of all TV homes will use a DVR by 2016, most viewers are still watching commercials. In fact, DVRs actually increased the rating for commercials by 44%. 

Internet now competes with radio, and television. Prodigy, a company owned by IBM and Sears, ran the first advertisement on the internet and promoted Sears products  in the early 1980s. Prodigy even ran advertisements for AOL, which one of Prodigy’s direct competitors. Global Network Navigator was the first commercial web publication offering clickable advertisements which we all know as banner ads. Internet advertising has grown to include many forms of advertising such as:

• Search engine result pages: Probably the most popular form as everyone is familiar with Google’s textually relevant ads

• Rich Media Ads: These are ads that have video and/or audio. They are typically using Adobe’s Flash technology, but ads written in HTML 5 are starting to appear as well.

• Social network advertising: If you use Twitter, then you’ve probably seen companies talking about sales, coupons, or just bringing their followers up to speed. The same is done on Facebook as well.

Internet advertising is getting more and more popular. Internet advertising revenues hit  record spending amounts in 2011. This is partly because affluent persons are actually using the internet more than television. Internet based advertising is only going to increase, especially when companies like Hulu are able to provide valuable free content.

What else is out there? There are literally thousands of different advertising ideas that you can use for your small business. You will need to base your decisions on your demographic, and what you are able to offer to your customer. Sometimes a special niche form of advertising might provide you with the results you are after. For example, a travel site might want to advertise on the mini-TVs in metropolitan taxis because that is the demographic they are trying to attract, or an smartphone case maker may want to advertise on a smartphone app because they can target customers that only have smartphones.

America has a love and hate relationship with advertising. It’s up to you to ensure that you stay loved.

For more information on how Tonangi Design & Media can create a website or produce a video for business visit www.tonangi.com

 Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265 | fax: 619.566.4043

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Broadcast TV slips while Cable TV spending grows

Some advertisers believe that broadcast television is the only television format that they should utilize for advertising. They couldn't be more wrong. In fact the entire advertising industry disagrees with this myth. According to a recent Nielsen report, U.S. ad spending declined 15.4% during the first half of 2009 however Cable television advertising actually increased by 1.5%. This means that businesses have started to see the advantage that cable television advertising has over broadcast television. In addition to the extremely high budgets broadcast networks require the options are quite limited. The Big 4 Networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) are now trying to gain the advertising revenue that they lost to local and national cable television advertising.

This is important to small businesses, who thought that advertising on television would be cost prohibitive. Running a local or national cable television advertising campaign is no longer for just large companies. This also means that small businesses don't need to work only with their local cable company as many have done in the past. Advertising agencies, like Tonangi Media, have access to advertise on cable television networks in all 50 states.

From the Nielsen report: "What’s interesting is that we’re not just seeing a rise in spending for recession-friendly products like fast food restaurants. We’re seeing a lot more promotion of technological innovations like smartphones, computer software, and consumer-driven web sites. These advertisers see potential for their products despite our stressed economy and are leveraging advertising to drive their success.”

For more information on how Tonangi Media can help you advertise on television visit www.tonangi.com

 Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265| fax: 619.566.4043

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Advertising Agencies should be an extension of your Business Development Department

When most people think of Advertising agencies they think of companies that simply broker deals between a publisher and a potential advertiser. Although this is what many agencies do, there are a few agencies that add real value to working with them. Some agencies, such as Tonangi Media, prepay for ad space on a wholesale level to deliver cost effective advertising solutions to small businesses. Agencies like Tonangi Media offer full video production services and advertising solutions for a variety of mediums including television and internet.

As a small business owner, you should ask more for more. When small businesses struggle many decision makers stop thinking clearly. This is because when someone works in the same industry for many years it is entirely possible to create a wall that blocks innovation. When a small business has been successful for a long time but suddenly starts loosing money, it is important to think of creative ways to generate revenue without significant investment. Advertising agencies, like Tonangi Media, work with many businesses in different industries on a daily basis and we have helped our clients form partnerships, and create new avenues for revenue growth while focusing on these new ideas in our advertising strategies.

For years larger companies, such as JC Penney, have worked with advertising agencies that not only generated creative advertising for a specific demographic, but also initiated new products and services that increased sales revenue. It is not enough for an advertising agency to simply create an ad and run it on television and the internet. It is important for any small business to select an advertising agency that can be an extension of your business development department. 

For more information on how Tonangi Media can help your small business, please visit www.tonangi.com

 Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265 | fax: 619.566.4043

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Bad PR + Bad advertising + Bad management equal = ?

Bad PR + Bad advertising + Bad management equal = ? Hint. The answer is Palm.

Usually I like to discuss strategies that can help small businesses succeed, whether you want to advertise on tv, the internet, or use social networking to increase your exposure. Today, you will not be reading one of those posts. Today's post (if you indulge me) will be a rant.

Palm launched the Palm Pre to be a competitor for the iPhone. The Pre has a seductive mobile operating system, and Palm created a buzz when it first announced the device in January. One of the Pre's biggest selling points was that its phone would seamlessly sync with iTunes, something that no other phone maker has ever guaranteed. Palm created a 'workaround' by identifying it's hardware as a genuine iPod. When Apple released an update to it's iTunes software the Pre's ability to sync with iTunes was removed. Later on Palm updated its firmware on it's phone to again sync with iTunes. This is not the way to launch a product that is supposed to save a company from bankruptcy.

Palm advertised that their product would sync with a competitor's software solution, and Palm made these statements without any agreement or authorization from Apple. What did Palm expect? Did they think that Apple (a competitor in the mobile phone market) would allow the Pre to utilize its software? It seems Palm did not see this coming - which in of itself is quite baffling. Palm sent a formal request to the USB Implementers Forum asking them to force Apple to allow their device to sync with iTunes. The USB-IF disagreed with Palm's request and told Palm that their intent to "masquerade as an Apple iPod when talking to iTunes" was against USB-IF policy. Palm's latest firmware update did not include a 'fix' to sync the Pre to iTunes. Their customers have not been formally told that a reliable solution will be created. The Pre no longer can sync to iTunes without the use of 3rd party software, yet their own website details still claims to be able to sync to iTunes - however if you read the fine print you might see this statement "Compatible with iTunes v8.2. Compatibility with future versions not guaranteed."

No matter what mistakes Palm made initially they should have released a solution to their customers. Though I believe Palm never should have advertised iTunes compatibility without an agreement from Apple, they could have handled the issue professionally instead of seeming like their company was run by 2nd graders. Any business - large or small, can learn from their mistakes. If you make a mistake, talk to your customers, and compensate them. Amazon did this when they deleted books on the Kindle that were already paid for by customers. It was reported everywhere - even on CNN. Customers were upset, but later understood the problem and the issue evaporated. Palm did no such thing, and this continues to upset its customers, its investors, its competitors, and even non-profit organizations (the USB-IF).

Bad Palm. Bad. 

If this was the only flaw they wouldn't be the subject of this rant. Oh no, they have much more to answer for, like this ad:

This ad was considered 'creepy'. Here are some of the comments that were written about this ad:

InuEars546: I HATE THIS LADY.

swigglys: shes a creepo!

Calyntheartist: She's the reason i won’t get that phone

Again - what was Palm thinking ? The ad resulted in so much 'hate' that a rash of parodies started to flow over the internet. Unlike, the "Can you hear me now?" parodies I blogged about before there was no laughter, and no positive emotion. Viewers were not intrigued - they were actually turned off. Although Palm won't announce it's actual sales for the Pre it definitely did not turn out to be the iPhone killer that they claimed it would be. The iPhone sold over 1 million handsets the first weekend when the iPhone 3Gs was launched. Palm has yet to sell even 500,000 units to date. 

Bad public relations + bad advertising + and bad management = Palm. A failed company, that unfortunately that does not understand how to market and advertise a product successfully.

Don't be the next Palm. For more information on how Tonangi Media can help you advertise on television visit www.tonangi.com

 Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265 | fax: 619.566.4043

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Do online retailers really need to focus on website promotion?

Do online retailers really need to focus on website promotion?
No. I know that sounds crazy, so I'll say it again. No.

Many online retailers think that driving traffic to their website should be the number one priority. There are millions of online retailers in the United States alone and most of them spend quite a bit of time, energy, and money trying to promote their website when they should be focused on selling their products instead. Some hire SEO (search engine optimization) companies, and others spend time trying to improve their page ranking organically. If you are an online retailer there are other options for you.

Amazon.com has tens of millions of existing customers that frequent their online store on the web, and on mobile devices. Amazon.com gives users the power to sell directly on their online store. For about $40 a month you can sell a range of products on Amazon.com. There are other sites such as eBay.com that have special stores for businesses that sell directly on their site. By distributing your product on sites that have existing traffic you don't need to worry about promoting your website. This leaves more time for you to focus on your core competency and that is to successfully run your business by lowering your costs, and offering new products to your retail customers.

Of course, you can not simply sign up with these large online distributors and stop marketing and advertising. Both Amazon.com and eBay.com have thousands of users, and it can be difficult for customers to find your specific product. This is where Tonangi Media can help you. By creating an advertising campaign, both on the internet and on national television, we can generate brand awareness and increase exposure for your products. By indicating that your products are available on Amazon.com, your company will reflect a sense of credibility that you otherwise wouldn't achieve.

Vinod Tonangi | www.tonangi.com | phone: 201.252.7265 | fax: 619.566.4043

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