Tiger Woods, the world’s best paid and best known athlete, was dropped recently as an advertising pitchman for Buick after eight years into a nine-year contract. The deal had been paying Woods $7 million a year. Woods’ cancellation is part of a corporate effort to slim total marketing budget in 2009 by a reported 20 percent.
Traditional advertising philosophy holds that there is an inverse correlation between branding spends and recessionary declines: advertising during economic slumps builds the foundation for future growth. The belief is that brands that continue to maintain “top of mind” presence with consumers will not be readily forgotten when it is time for a consumer to make a purchase.
During the first eight months of 2008, combined ad spending by Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers equaled $2.53 billion, a 14 percent drop from the comparable period of 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
Because automobile advertising represents a substantial slice of the total television advertising pie, TV may need to make some extreme revenue-enhancing changes in the months ahead.
According to Variety, one of the major networks could decide to drop an hour of prime time, scheduling programming from 8 pm to 10 pm and giving the extra hour to the affiliates. Such a change would reduce program costs and minimize the effects of underperforming shows on the bottom line.
The nets are now under pressure to eliminate integration fees (Editor’s Note: see Breakthrough Reached In Stalemate Over Network Integration Fees in the September 2008 issue of the Gazette.) Additionally, the nets are still overcoming the harmful effects of the recent writers strike (and are probably facing a SAG-supported screen actors strike early next year). Moreover, the weak economy, which has been in recession since December 2007 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, has impacted advertising spending for all business sectors. Marketers and ad agencies too are seeking as much ROI as possible, carefully rationalizing media buys.
U.S. International Media is structured to deliver maximum ROI for our clients. We assist clients in achieving their business objectives while staying on-budget by recommending the best possible use of various media platforms, analyzing/researching target audiences, and keeping abreast of media developments and market trends. We aggressively negotiate rates, placement, merchandising, etc., which yields highly productive added value programs for our clients.
Over 80 percent of USIM’s current employees are Western International Media Corporation alumni, providing significant knowledge continuity and competitive advantages. After only four years of operation, U.S. International Media has grown to become one of the largest independent media agencies in the industry, serving more than 200 clients from 17 US and 9 international offices.
By Darrell Woody
Gazette Staff Writer