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jumping back in
This is not 9/11. Americans taking war in stride.
Yesterday, coming after a weekend of bloody news from Iraq, was a day of reckoning for many major American advertisers. Do we stay dark or resume advertising?
It appears the vast majority are reckoning it makes more sense to advertise through this war, whatever its outcome.
They appear to be moving quickly. By late yesterday a quick scan of the TV dial found advertising on Fox News, for example, even though reports earlier in the day, in Media Life and elsewhere, were predicting that the cable news networks in particular would be going without much advertising for some time.
According to the Jack Myers Report, nearly 75 percent of the advertisers who went dark during the first 48 hours of the war are already back on the air or plan to be back by the end of the week.
McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, UPS, Hewlett-Packard and Kraft Foods are among the major marketers who have continued to run ads in one or more mediums.
As a result of these decisions by advertisers, the losses suffered by the broadcast and cable news networks are being dramatically cut back, to as low as $100 million from estimates of as high as $400 million in lost advertising revenue.
The decisions to resume advertising are being driven by a number of forces, and certainly leading the list is the realization that Americans are not only not going to be offended seeing ads during war coverage, they expect to see them.
Indeed, as we report in today's Story Two, the best place for ads to air may well be amid news stories of the war. From common sense, advertisers are being advised to avoid ads using humor, which in these times will annoy viewers.
Another factor is the realization that the war in Iraq is not comparable to 9/11, a horrific event in the lives of Americans, and one in which advertisers went dark as cable and broadcast news outlets went to 24/7 coverage.
The war in Iraq has been long anticipated by the American public, and that public appears to be taking the war well in stride.
By last weekend, Americans were out shopping, after several days of avoiding stores. Opinion polls are finding that support of the war has gone up since the initial attacks.
Yet a third factor appears to be affecting advertisers' decision to remain on the air. It is the reviving ad economy in general and the hot television market in particular. There's simply a lot of demand for face time in front of the American public, and in many cases it's for new product launches.
Certainly, media people are watching the war closely, as are their advertisers, and the overall skittishness has not subsided all that much. Their biggest concern is how consumer attitudes might change as the war goes on.
“Every time it takes a turn, we have to reassess where we are and where we want to be,” says one media buyer who asked not to be identified.
“One of the best benchmarks is that we are also consumers, so we have a feel for what’s happening. We also understand the personality and culture of our clients and know how it affects them.”
Observes John Rash, senior vice president and director of broadcast negotiations at Campbell Mithun:
“Some advertisers have pulled out, but it appears few if any pulled out because of a specific network’s coverage. Most are more concerned about how receptive consumers are to advertising at this time.”
March 25, 2003© 2003 Media Life
