Competitive Media Facts

Broadcast viewership has been decreasing, and when compared with the targeted reach of cable advertising, local broadcast TV falls short.

• Local broadcast has no opportunity to target audiences in specific geographic areas.
• Misses the ratings mark in households that use cable.
• Decreasing viewership.
• Ads tend to be costly to run and expensive to produce.

Newspaper readership has steadily declined over the past few decades, so newspapers can’t guarantee the same strong return for your advertising investment that cable TV can.

• Younger demographics are hard to reach.
• Color ads can be expensive and reproduction quality can be inconsistent.
• Difficult to engage and reach new prospects and to compete with the ad clutter.
• A big investment for relatively few messaging opportunities.

Radio listeners are usually driving, which means your message may end up in the background. The growing popularity of commercial-free satellite radio and widespread driver use of cell phones has reduced the effectiveness of radio advertising even more.

• Duplicated radio formats within the same market lead to message oversaturation.
• Small audiences make it difficult to build high-audience reach.
• Radio listeners tend to be driving and disengaged.
• Targeting small geographic areas can be difficult.

If you need to convey a slightly complex message, appeal to a specific demographic audience, or need to get good, measurable impression data, outdoor billboards aren’t the way to go. Cars move fast, so drivers generally view billboards for a mere 6–8 seconds.

• With outdoor advertising, demographic targeting is impossible.
• Brief audience exposure means simple messages only.
• Audience is focused on driving and affected by traffic, weather and other distractions.
• Often expensive, and results are difficult to measure.

Direct mail is almost never requested, which means it can be difficult to get potential customers to open the envelope. This can lower the overall cost-efficiency of a direct mail campaign.

• Impersonal nature reduces the probability of mail even being opened.
• Mailing lists rapidly become outdated.
• Lead-time and preparation is time intensive.
• Expensive on a per-response basis.

With the rise of local search on the Internet and cell phones, Yellow Pages is facing increasing competition to remain a relevant advertising medium.

• Yellow Pages aren’t portable – nobody carries “the book” around with them.
• Long shelf-life means your ad will rapidly become outdated.
• Yellow Page ads are not interactive.

Now there are so many ads cluttering the Internet that it has become more and more difficult for one message to stand out. Plus, the constant threat of fraudulent deals and identity theft has made many consumers cautious of interacting with any Internet ads.

• Internet has lots of ad clutter.
• Consumers may be skeptical of banner ads due to spammers or hackers.
• Low response rate on display ads.
• Must have knowledge of new technologies.