The appointment carries an anticipated annual media spend of US $3 billion worldwide, according to Kantar Media.

The remit of the multi-year contract includes media planning and buying, search, social media and mobile communications and the relationship will be managed and co-ordinated through Carat’s global US team. The contract will cover all three global Aegis reporting regions – EMEA, Americas and Asia Pacific – and follows Aegis Media’s appointment as GM’s media agency across Europe on 1 January 2007.

Operating in 120 countries around the world, Aegis Group is the world’s leading media and digital communications group and holding company for Carat, Vizeum, Isobar, Posterscope and iProspect. With market-leading organic growth, 34% of revenues from digital and net new business totalling US $2.7 billion in 2011, Aegis is uniquely positioned for the convergent media environment.

Joel Ewanick, GM Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer said:

“We wanted a media agency partner with the sophistication to leverage global marketing opportunities. Carat has an innovative approach to drive significant marketing value and their service model has been tailored to align well with our global and regional brands. They are uniquely positioned to help us form strong media partnerships and drive significant global efficiencies.”

Jerry Buhlmann, Chief Executive Officer of Aegis Group plc, said:

“We are extremely proud to have been selected by General Motors as their global media partner, for what is the most significant new business win in Aegis Group’s history. This win reflects Aegis Media’s unique ability to deliver integrated and specialist media and digital communications services on a global scale. We are excited about developing our relationship with GM in the future, and look forward to delivering many years of innovation and value to GM, our largest global client.”

Nigel Morris, Chief Executive Officer of Aegis Media Americas, said:

“This is a defining moment for our business and the market. We have designed our organization for convergence and globalization. We have a clearly differentiated operating model that is focused on reinventing the way we work with our clients and their brands. From the outset it was evident that the GM team was looking for a transformative approach with innovation at the core. They have a powerful vision and powerful brands and we are looking forward to it being a powerful partnership.”

“Welcome to the whole new world” (Peeter Koppel, SEB privatebank strategist)

“Estonian Media universum in six part” (Janek Luts, Eesti Ekspress chief editor)

“Tangible Solutions” (Marko Leppik, Wiseman Interactive executive director)

“Wanted..” (Liisel Kalda, Aegis Media research manager)

“Changes In Regulation Marketing” (Mihkel Miidla, Sorainen Law office)

“Media 2012” (Liis Raudsep, Aegis Media, media director)

We thank our performers and quests!

GfK, the research firm, drew on data from 42 countries throughout the continent, and predicted household expenditure would remain “robust” in the face of on-going financial uncertainty.

More specifically, the company estimated European citizens will be worth a collective €8.5tr this year when combining consumer spending and savings.

This equates to €12,774 per person across the 42 featured nations, after totals grow by a projected 3.1% in 2011.

However, the “old” 15 members of the European Union, incorporating countries such as the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, are likely to post a slightly smaller 2.3% increase here.

By contrast, emerging markets that are either full members of the European Union or partners with the organisation, including the Ukraine and Turkey, are in line to witness a more rapid improvement.

In terms of per capita purchasing power, the top three European nations according to GfK are Lichtenstein, Switzerland and Norway, the average resident of which boasts at least €29,028.

Portugal, hit particularly hard by the financial crisis, was in the middle of the 42 outlets assessed, on €10,608, but has fallen behind fast-growing markets like Slovenia.

Despite its anticipated double-digit expansion, Ukraine’s typical resident still only has a purchasing power of €1,761, considerably lagging the norm.

Similarly, Poland is also forecast to experience extremely rapid growth on this measure, although the average rating of €6,050 will be just 60% that of Portugal by the close of 2011.

Data sourced from GfK; additional content by Warc staff, 1 November 2011

Alcohol brands wanting to use social networks, blogs, mobile apps and user generated content will have to follow new guidelines, set out by the organisations in Europe and the US, from 30 September.

The guidelines will focus on consistent age checking across social media, enforce regular monitoring of brands social media pages and the removal of inappropriate content and ensuring that European drinks brands report back on commitments to prove the effectiveness of the self regulation model.

Alan Butler, Chairman of the EFRD, which represents major spirits brands including Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Moet Hennessy, Bacardi, Beam Global Spirits and Wine and Brown Forman, says: “Digital marketing is becoming increasingly important in our engagement with consumers. These new guidelines will ensure that we apply the same high standards to all new media channels and technologies such as Mobile applications or social media platforms such as Facebook.”

EFRD will now launch a European road show to promote the guidelines and has invited UK alcohol regulatory organization Portman Group to head up the initiative.

In the UK The Portman Group has had guidelines for alcohol brands on social media since 2009 and the Advertising Standards Association expanded its CAP Code last year to include social media, making its alcohol regulations also applicable in the expanded remit.

Current CAP code rules, however, do not require a responsible drinking message and do not restrict access to Facebook pages.

David Poley chief executive of the Portman Group, said, “The Portman Group started regulating online alcohol marketing back in 2003 when we recognised how important the digital arena would become within the marketing mix. We have built up considerable expertise in this area and introduced detailed guidelines in 2009. We also provide training and best practice guidelines for drinks companies in this area.”

A spokesman for the ASA, said, “We welcome any initiative by industry to put guidelines in place around responsible marketing/promotion of alcohol. There are some aspects of the guidance that go beyond what is required by the CAP Code so, from an ASA perspective, we would only expect marketers to ensure they comply with the strict alcohol advertising rules.”

One issue picked up by the expanded ASA remit is the use of Facebook’s Sponsored Stories ad formats by alcohol brands. The ad formats use information including user images within ad creative, which potentially breaks the ASA guideline to prevent people who look under age appearing in alcohol ad creative.

Source: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/food-and-drink/alcohol-brands-beef-up-social-media-regulation/3030274.article

Yes, both TV3 and LNT will lose the audience – approximately 10% -15% each. Due to digitalization – terrestrial broadcasting is losing its role; there is currently ~ 20% of the audience using terrestrial signal, of which only ~30% are using free TV.

But if TV channels will truly reallocate investments of expensive broadcast in favor of investment in content, then most of audience will be motivated to pay for qualitative content and in a period of few months channels will reach the same level of audience as it is at this moment.

Consequently with the rating drop the viewer will also have to accept that the amount of advertising on these channels will only grow and will reach the maximum limits permitted by law (12 minutes per hour). This can be solved only by TV channels decision to raise advertising price, and this message certainly will be unpromising for advertisers, there is hard to imagine other way how to reduce advertising clutter. But it is in the advertisers’ interest too, to have TV channels with qualitative content

It is difficult to agree to the criticism addressed to TV channels on social responsibility and disregarding viewer. In Latvia there is a state supported public television (LTV), which carries the flag of social responsibility. Commercial TV channels work in harsh conditions of competition and they must make decisions how to survive and develop in long term and decision to invest in content rather than maintenance of expensive terrestrial broadcasting is understandable.

In short – long term benefiters of this decision will be TV channels, TV viewers and advertisers. The only involved party which is in really disadvantageous position in this situation is Lattelecom, which will have to solve problem how to earn back invested money in digitization.

Aivars Smits
Media Research Specialist
Aegis Media

Data about actual good’s receivers will be required

Changes in the law About press and other mass media provides mass media founders and owners which are corporations with obligation to inform Commercial institution about actual good’s receivers. This information will be demanded to submit to Business Register in the order and cases established in the Commercial law.

Law’s accepted edition also prescribes that further when register mass media, detailed information about media owners (founders) and publishers – legal entities or private persons – will be demanded to hand in. There also has new demand in the law to specify media’s duration if it is founded for a fixed period of time or to reach specific aim.

Law also has additional norm that editor (chief editor), performing his duties, is editorially independent.

„In accordance with the law corrections internet place will be possible to register as mass media too but for  internet portals, which role in public communication is considerably growing registration will be not obligatory,” said the competent Parliamentary commission head Ingrida  Circene, hoping that this area will be stipulated in next law corrections or even separated draft laws.

Law amendment was made by Latvian Journalists association suggestion.

www.tvnet.lv

Full story http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/retailrenaissance/

Long-term trend of two-speed world and rapid digital growth continues

Carat, the world’s leading independent media communications agency, today publishes its updated forecasts for global advertising expenditure for 2011 and 2012.

Carat’s data shows global advertising expenditure has and will continue to grow in 2011, outperforming the advertising market levels of 2008. Carat now predicts that global advertising expenditure will grow by + 5.0%, dipping from the + 5.7% predicted in March 2011, reflecting the caution sparked by global macro-economic factors, natural disasters and political instability in a number of parts of the world.

For 2012, Carat continues to predict robust growth with the global advertising market growing by
+ 6.0% (March 2011: + 6.2%), boosted by a year of events including the 2012 Olympics, the UEFA European Football Championship and the US presidential elections.

Click here to read full press release

http://www.clickz.asia

How Social Media Is Changing Paid, Earned & Owned Media

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The Modern Media Agency Series is supported by IDG. IDG research shows that IT professionals are both early adopters of social media and many use it regularly. Ninety percent visit at least one social or business networking site each month. Find out more about the report here. Click here to learn why.

Those in the marketing and agency world are privy to the buzzwords “paid,” “earned” and owned.” Traditionally, they stand for the different types of media and can be easily broken down like this:

• Paid: Buying a 30-second Super Bowl spot
• Earned: Coverage on Mashable
• Owned: Your company’s website

But social media has brought about a change. It not only affected how agencies themselves function on a day-to-day basis, but it also altered the definitions of paid, earned and owned media and blurred the lines between them. Now, the challenge that agencies face is figuring out how to integrate all three forms of media for maximum effect. What follows is a breakdown of what the terms mean, how different agencies interpret them, who is responsible for synthesizing the three channels and how the agencies measure success.

The Social Challenge

The conversations on Twitter and Facebook never stop — it’s 24/7/365. A brand can’t buy an ad and then call it quits — it has to continue the conversation, engage consumers and really earn that earned media.

“Why would a TV spot end and there be no URL or Facebook Page?” asks Curtis Hougland, founder and CEO of Attention. “We don’t want any ‘dead ends’ — the conversation should be ongoing and cross-platform.” Indeed, blasting consumers with banner ads and product placement isn’t enough. With social media, marketing has become more of a pull medium than a push — the audience is active and engaged, transforming marketing into a two-way street. It’s been a curveball for the industry, and agencies have had to restructure and rethink their approach to media to account for the impact of social media.

Paid, earned and owned — as terms — don’t mean as much. Grant Owens, an account planning VP atRazorfish, often finds himself “frustrated by the rigidity of the buckets.” To explain why, he looks at a brandedYouTube channel and explains why it could be classified as any of the three buckets:

• Paid. It can cost ~$100,000 a year to manage.
• Owned. It’s an exclusively owned URL (much like a website) and the brand has complete control of what is posted.
• Earned. It’s “squarely social.” A YouTube channel will succeed only if consumers watch and share the videos they see. A brand needs to earn those eyeballs with creative execution of content.

And even a Facebook Page, which is free and “owned,” costs a pretty penny when you consider the fees of hiring an agency and social media specialist to manage the Page and produce content.

“To some extent, everything that’s done by a media agency is paid media,” says Andrea Wolinetz, director of social media at PHD. “Whether it’s managing a Facebook Page or blogger outreach, people get paid for that work, so it always starts from a place of paid media.”

And at the end of the day, do consumers care about these buckets? Do they see the paid, earned and owned lines drawn when they’re watching a commercial or tweeting about their favorite brand? No.

“Consumers don’t draw those lines, we do,” says Owens.

The Increasing Importance of Earned Media

So, the goal of the modern agency is to connect the dots and integrate all media for maximum results. Of the three buckets, the holy grail is earned media. Earned media can be most easily described as the result of paid and media — you buy a Super Bowl ad (paid) or you run a promotion on your brand’s Facebook Page (owned), and then and then people in the media talk about it (earned) and the Twitterverse erupts into conversation about that topic. You may shell out big bucks to flash an ad before a consumer, but you can’t force them to buy anything or tweet about it — you have to earn that consumer’s dollars and tweets, you have to engage and empower him to become your evangelist, says Sean Corcoran, an analyst at Forrester.

“Earned often requires a paid spark,” says Owens. “We have empirical evidence that a kick-start from paid media is often the difference between a cultural juggernaut and complete silence.”

Wolinetz agrees, saying that earned media is the buzz, and it’s more of an effect than a cause. “It’s what becomes of any fire that we start in a space,” whether it’s from paid media or not. Earned media is what you get when you foster such a connection with someone that he’s impelled to write a Yelp review, a blog post, a comment or a tweet, sharing their thoughts on your brand with their social network. The nice thing about earned media, too, is that it provides more insights and is much more measurable than it was before social media went mainstream.

But, “regardless of what type of media it is, you still need to conceive of its potential as earned media,” says Hougland. “You need to conceive of the distribution of the content at its conception and then filter everythingthrough its earned potential.” This is especially important, he says, when you consider that all content — whether it’s text, a video or a microsite — will be “reduced to a link” for social spheres. There were 500 billion word-of-mouth impressions made by Americans online in 2009, according to Forrester. Such volumes of word-of-mouth marketing can spread awareness of a product incredibly quickly, and it’s why earned media has become so important to a marketing campaign.

How Paid, Earned and Owned Play Together

So, is any form of media more valuable than the others? While we’ve already discussed that earned media is becoming ever more crucial — you want people to become evangelists and talk about your products of their own volition. Then again, it’s hard to get those eyeballs without making a big impression for which you have to pay big bucks. Wolinetz says that whether one is more important than the others comes down to what you’re trying to accomplish.

“We want to understand how these three media work together for a goal, whether that’s an action, or a purchase or more conversation,” she says.

In addition to the big three, the planners at Horizon Media also take into consideration social insights (also called ‘social intelligence’). Taylor Valentine, Horizon’s VP of social media and relationship marketing, says “You don’t really begin to understand the impact that [paid, earned and owned] are having on each other” unless you look at the numbers and analyze the data to see where traffic is coming from and what is spurring engagement. The raw numbers — say, 746 “likes” and 593 comments in a week on a Facebook Page — don’t provide much insight, but digging into the numbers and figuring out what people responded to will help a brand optimize all forms of media, thereby enabling the brand to create the deepest and most meaningful relationships with consumers.

The important thing to remember is that social media is not a vertical, like advertising or PR — “It’s a horizontal layer that wants to touch every part of your business, from customer service to customer acquisition to customer retention,” says Hougland. He and Owens agree that there can’t be silos anymore — the teams at the agency must play well together to come up with an idea that can dip into all forms of media. Attention’sBarbie and Ken campaign is a great example of an integrated approach. It started with a simple idea: How can Barbie and Ken get back together? And it worked very well across all forms of media and even dipped into “shared media” with the Match.com video, since both Mattel and Match benefited from the earned media generated by the clip.

Measuring the Value of Media

A media agency is driven by an objective — it needs to compel consumers to do something, whether it’s paying attention to a new product, buying something or going to a store. Just because the medium is Twitter instead of TV doesn’t mean much — media is media. What’s become most important to the agency is how successful the campaign was at accomplishing the goals.

“At this point in social media, we pretty much have metrics along the entire purchase pathway,” Wolinetz says. “We know the amount of eyeballs that something hits and how far it spreads.”

Whether it’s better to get X million hits on one post of earned media on Perez Hilton or the same number of impressions spread over 25 different sites comes down to the campaign. “Depending on your objective, one would be more important than the other,” says Wolenitz.

Hougland adds that we’re getting to the point where there are different performance metrics for each point along the marketing funnel. You can determine your effectiveness at achieving a goal, whether it’s brand health, brand awareness, brand preference or intent to buy, says Valentine. Owens puts it bluntly: Did we drive more leads and sell more cars? Did more people book hotel rooms? Do people have a better perception of the brand?

As more consumers get on board with social media, generating earned media through social shares will become an even higher priority. And that means paid and owned media — and the teams that manage each — will need to work together even more seamlessly. The barriers of the silos are broken, and they’re only going to crumble more