Advertisers adjust their pitch to the Internet Age

Newly elected IAA World President and leading Dubai advertising boss Joseph Ghossoub told the 2,000 delegates from 67 countries that the industry was in danger of falling behind current media trends and losing its relevance.

'My generation used to read books, magazines, go to the movies once a week. The current generation wants everything at its fingertips: WAP enabled phones, Bluetooth, SMS, video, iPods, wireless broadband, Blackberry, podcasts and TiVo.'

This theme was taken up by many speakers at the World Congress, which opened on Monday night, with the traditional media on hand to make a robust response. One speaker highlighted the impact of the cost pressures from the new media on standards of journalism.

'Newspapers are particularly under threat from the Internet,' said Time Warner senior adviser Norman Pearlstine. 'A decline in the amount of classified advertising is hitting some newspapers particularly hard. There is a tremendous pressure on editors to try to do more with fewer resources.'

Gulf News audits

However, local newspaper champion Gulf News has responded by announcing a double readership audit to put pressure on its rivals in the old and new media. Officials told AME Info the audits by ABC and BPA will confirm a daily readership of around 100,000 in the UAE.

But this is clearly a brave step as newspaper audits around the world are showing declining sales in the face of the advance of the Internet and electronic media which offer same-day delivery of the news and are not a day behind like the newspapers. Future audits could thus confirm the decline of Gulf News rather than its advance.

Interestingly, Time Warner's Mr. Pearlstine said that magazines have not been as badly affected by the Internet revolution as magazines. 'Magazines have never been timely, or publications of record and have not relied on classified advertising,' he added.

Magazines survive

IAA World Congress platinum sponsor Motivate Publishing has also taken up the auditing baton, and is moving ahead to ensure that all its magazines have audited circulations by the end of the year. But the target here appears to be mainly rival magazines rather than the new media, with Gulf Business likely to emerge as a leading monthly business title for example.

On the other hand, for all the discussion of the Internet and the new media actual expenditure on this sector in the $5 billion Gulf advertising market is less than one per cent of the total, although this is certainly the fastest growing sector of the market and the most under-priced.

For the real challenge now for the Gulf advertising industry is to take what Mr. Ghossoub is saying seriously, and to discover how to tap the huge value-for-money provided by electronic media. Those that do so will reach the critical youth sector in a region where the demographical profile is skewed towards the younger population.