'Earned media' is the new advertising must-have

Participation marketing and "owned media assets" are the new buzz-terms in the notoriously fickle advertising industry.

Adam Good, executive director of digital innovation at advertising agency Clemenger Group, says businesses should no longer regard digital channels as a mere add-on to their conventional marketing channels.

The company last week held a training session in Wellington for clients keen on trying to apply some disciplines in an increasingly complex media landscape.

"We are finding marketing executives and chief executives are saying, 'what do I do? I am here to shift all these fridges, toilet rolls - what channels do I use?' and what we are saying is you have got to get into the 'conversation economy' - you have got tado get people talking about your brand."

Mr Good says there has been some decline in traditional advertising, but that is only because there is more choice.

"Maybe a number of years ago it might have been OK to do some newspaper and television advertising, hold an event and do some online advertising.

"What we have tried to show is the way to look at digital is to put it at the heart of it all and surround that with what we call 'bought media' - such as advertising in newspapers.

"If you get your own media asset compelling and right, you will get what we call 'earned media' - the conversations that people might have about your products and services."

The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates the amount spent on online advertising in New Zealand grew 10 per cent in 2009 to $213.9 million. British researcher ZenithOptimedia says that the internet will grow its share of the advertising market from 12.4 per cent in 2009 to 16.2 per cent in 2012.

The overall global advertising market fell an "unprecedented" 10.2 per cent last year, but has since stabilised and is expected to return to 5 per cent annual growth by 2012, it says.

Mr Good points to a campaign by Queensland Tourism last year as an example of what can be achieved. What started as a newspaper advertisement for "the best job in the world" - as a caretaker on an island in the Whitsundays - attracted thousands of applicants from around the world and morphed into an internet phenomenon as people voted for candidates, and then into a one-hour television show.

He accepts there is probably a limit to the number of "conversations" consumers would want to participate in at any one time, but says Clemenger has learned a lot about "how to spark those fires".

About 15 per cent of Clemenger's 580 staff are now digital professionals, doing jobs that would not have existed in an agency even three years ago.

Channels such as Twitter and Facebook would "come and go". Businesses could still be at a loss working out what it meant to have 4000 friends on Facebook and 3000 followers on Twitter, he says.

Clemenger didn't have an answer, and it would differ for different brands, but some historical data is emerging and "we have probably got points of view now".

The common trend is that people want to express themselves, he says.

"People like to have an opinion and be involved, moving from being a spectator of information to a critic. There are not too many purchases that people are making without some form of recommendation."

- © Fairfax NZ News