Canadians may have more media choices than ever before, but consolidation of ownership has left media buyers with fewer, increasingly large sellers with which to do business, says Sunni Boot, president of media buying company, Optimedia Canada.
Boot says these and other major issues facing advertisers and buyers – including fragmentation, consolidation and advertising clutter – will be addressed head-on at the Canadian Media Directors’ Council annual conference, to be held on April 15 in Toronto.
Entitled ‘Consumer Choice and the Impact on Media’ the conference will pit media planners and buyers against representatives from the full spectrum of media, including the presidents of all of Canada’s major television networks.
Peter Elwood, president of Lipton and a keynote speaker at the conference, says the consolidation of media hasn’t eliminated competition. It’s just that the competition is between larger players.
Elwood says the big issue for agencies, as always, is to cut through advertising clutter and to communicate advertising messages in a more fragmented marketplace.
Boot says one benefit of the changing media landscape is better media product. She says the consolidation of media ownership has allowed companies to reinvest in their product to provide better content, which means Canadian media will be more likely to retain their audiences. In turn, this means Canadian advertisers will be less likely to seek u.s. media alternatives, including border tv stations beamed into Canada and split-run magazines distributed here.
Despite their efforts to retain audience, Boot says she’s seeing a decrease in the use of mass media and an increase in the use of new technologies and computer-based media.
‘What this is telling us is we have to use mass media very selectively.
‘I was taught to do a great job in your primary medium before you dilute funds to your secondary and tertiary media. Today, I would strongly argue that I would be happy to sacrifice primary and secondary because to reach my active consumer, I need two or three traditional media and maybe two or three non-traditional media.’
Boot says fragmentation in the tv marketplace has reached the point where no one network draws even 3% of viewers at any given time.
Sidebar: PeopleMeter debate continues
The Association of Canadian Advertisers is not rushing to embrace bbm’s picture-matching PeopleMeter system just yet.
Ron Lund, aca president and ceo, says that while bbm’s recent test in Vancouver proved their Taylor Nelson AGB PictureMatching Technology could duplicate the results of a Taylor Nelson AGB frequency meter, two of the most important criteria for advertisers – the meter’s effectiveness in determining the source of signal in a simulcast situation, and its ability to accurately identify a direct-to-home or satellite signal – were not part of the test.
However, Ron Bremner, vice-president, BBM Television, says these two functions were shown in lab tests to work effectively.
Still, Lund says the aca is reserving judgment on the system until it has seen that it works in households.
‘This is new technology. We want to make sure, if we do have a system in the marketplace, that it has been properly tested, so when the industry is asked to make decisions about Nielsen versus bbm, they’re making it with all the information,’ says Lund.
Canada’s incumbent electronic broadcast measurement company, Nielsen Media Research, launched 450 frequency meters in Vancouver last September.
