PPB July 2016

54 / 116

2015 PPAI DISTRIBUTOR SALES VOLUME REPORT
52 • PPB • JULY 2016 GROW
Broadcast TV had a reasonably decent
year with a four-percent gain (see table
below), prompting CBS chief Leslie
Moonves to crow and throw a dig at the ris-
ing digital opposition. “Everyone is now com-
ing to the same conclusion that we came to a
long time ago. Broadcast television remains
the single best and most effective medium for
advertising,” he claimed in an Advertising
Age report. “Digital advertising sometimes
lacks accuracy and credibility. As a result,
there is a clear shift in advertising back to
network television.”
But then, broadcast TV does have some
special, crowd-pleasing assets working for
it—like the Super Bowl. Back in 1978 you
could buy a 30-second spot during the
biggest game of the year for only $185,000.
Well, those same 30 seconds at Super Bowl
50 earlier this year cost Anheuser-Busch a
cool $5 million to convince viewers to try
Michelob Ultra.
Sydney Ember, writing in The New York
Times this spring, had an interesting take on
digital advertising. Ember wrote: “The explo-
sion of online ads, however, has led to the ris-
ing use of ad blockers and turned ‘advertising’
into something like a dirty word. So advertis-
ers and publishers are now looking for ways
to make online ads less like ads. Many in the
industry are even changing the way they talk
about ads.”
Seismic shifts in the media landscape
have forced a sea change among media organ-
izations resulting in mergers, and some organ-
izations eliminating research departments and
getting out of ad spend measurement entirely.
Some, like cable TV, an industry with
modestly rising revenues, have merged with
video. The decline in point-of-purchase busi-
ness has eliminated the standalone trade
group POPAI and created a merged group—
A.R.E./POPAI, a new association dedicated
to enhancing the total shopper experience.
And you may have noticed skinnier Yellow
Pages directories lately, if you use them at all.
Reading the writing on the wall, the old
Yellow Pages publishers’ group paired itself
with digital to become a new entity, Local
Search, and revenues are up almost six per-
cent.
This year’s total ad spend is expected to
rise, thanks to the summer Olympics and the
U.S. presidential election, forecasts London-
based ZenithOptimedia, and just about
everyone else in that business. With election-
eering requiring a lot of yard signs and
bumper stickers, look for the presidential
election to add $11.4 billion to 2016 ad rev-
enues, predicts Virginia-based media consult-
ant Borrell Associates. That’s 20 percent
more than in the 2012 presidential race.
Borrell reports that nearly half of the 2016
political dollars—$5.5 billion—will be spent
on local and state elections. That can buy a
lot of hot air.
PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS
SPEND IN 2015 RANKED
SIXTH AMONG ALL MEDIA
By Richard Alan Nelson, Ph.D. and Rick Ebel
ALTHOUGH NOT A BANNER YEAR for advertising rev-
enue, in 2015 most media kept pace with what
nowadays passes for inflation—but the digital
platforms were booming.
Dr. Richard Nelson, is adjunct professor of integrated mar-
keting communications at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media
Studies at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Rick Ebel, , is
the former PPAI marketing communications director and now principal of Glenrich
Business Studies, a business writing and research firm in Corvallis, Oregon.