- Greg

All I can tell you is that I have quite a bit of experience in this area, have run major operations in both traditional and online media and have been paid to consult for major corporations and have enjoyed access to proprietary data.

The opinions on this site are based on experience and expertise built up over five different countries and two decades. Accept them or not. This is not a debating club.

If you honestly want information about ad spends, the most commonly source is here http://www.zenithoptimedia.com/gff/index.cfm?id=77

Again, I apologize, but I really do have better things to do.

- Greg

I didn’t ask for proprietary campaign data, just what the percentage of global spend is for TV and radio over time and what your sources are.

Here is a bigger list of digital media companies that make money: Sohu, Baidu, Akamai, Facebook (according to my latest discussions with them), eBay, Amazon, Playfish, Yahoo, Craigslist (millions of revenue per employee), ancestry.com, Bloomberg, etc.

Since my list is bigger I guess that proves most digital media companies make money?

BTW, all data publicly available at http://finance.yahoo.com and many other sources.

I’m not sure what “a lot” of VCs is but I talk to VCs too. I hear of a lot of investing n digital media. Where do you think all the money comes from that the digital media companies are supposedly losing?

In any case, what does all this prove concerning how ideas spread? People are spending more and more time on the internet which means that is where ideas will increasingly spread and where advertisers will increasingly spend.

Unfortunately, the only way to know to learn what kind of campaigns are effective is to actually look at campaign data and measure the effect on awareness and sales. That data is proprietary and confidential.

Just curious, which digital media companies do you think make money? Youtube, Facebook, Myspace, Ask.com, Friendster, etc all lose money. Very few make money and literally thousands fail every year.

I don’t have any actual data (again proprietary), but talk to a few VC’s and they will tell you that very few digital properties are profitable or even cash flow positive (and I’ve talked to a lot of VCs)

- Greg

The tide is not turning. What is really amazing is how little most traditional media has been impacted. Radio, TV, Magazines and outdoor have basically the same share of the advertising market that they did fifteen years ago. The main impact has been in newspapers (which were heavily dependent on classified advertising) and direct response such as telemarketing and direct mail.

This might change in the future as web video becomes more popular (although now there is a dearth of audience data, so hasn’t made much progress) and the i-Pad.

Also, just for the record, Pepsi is not spending $20 million on social media. They are spending $20 million on a charity campaign and almost nothing on social media. TV continues to be their main media vehicle (besides, the math doesn’t work – a Super bowl ad costs about $2.5 million). Doritos, which is also a Pepsi brand, had multiple placements in the Super bowl.

So Pepsi as a company was actually one of the biggest advertisers in the 2010 super bowl.

- Greg

You’ve moved from discussing how to best spread ideas to comparing revenues.

Anyway, a 14% share of total global media spend is high, especially if we consider the period over which it was gained. And how far behind TV and radio is digital media exactly? A more interesting question than “who is biggest” would be how the percentages have been changing year over year and how quickly that gap is closing. Could you share your sources with us?

And most digital media companies I know of make a lot of money. Any numbers to support your claim that most lose money?

Agreed that Google is smaller than traditional media conglomerates that have been around for 90 odd years. I don’t know though how to tie that into your original recommendations or if it is even a useful comparison.

You say that advertisers are not willing to put more of their budgets into digital but past history and most forecasts show double digit growth for digital spend. People are spending more and more time online and the ad dollars will catch up.

Yes, Apple is a good example of spreading ideas using traditional mass media. I don’t know the E-Trade marketing story. Any ideas where I could learn more?

What would be interesting is to break down the “products” of older established brands such as Apple and now Pepsi and see if the tide is indeed turning or not to digital and social media.

For instance it would be interesting to know how much Apple spent on traditional advertising of the IPAD, and is there a way to measure that in sales figures …or were the runaway sales that happened a direct result of social awareness and the “viral” effects of tweets, myspace and FB.

Also why did Pepsi elect to spend 20 million (not sure of exact figure) on a Social media campaign… instead of the traditional SuperBowl that was done for years on end.

In today’s day of technology, “media” trends should be measured in shorter time-frames than was previously done.
It does look like even traditional established brands are moving toward social networks and using Social Media platforms rather than TV, and print.
.-= Clyde´s last blog ..Is Shooting 3D movies as complex as Open heart Surgery? =-.

Digital is about 14% of global media spend, which puts it far behind both print and TV. Moreover, as impressive and dominant as Google is, it’s revenues are only $23 billion, less than either Disney or Time Warner. Finally, Google is exceptional and no other digital media company even comes close.

So yes, if you compare it with traditional media, digital media earns far less in revenues and doesn’t even figure in when it comes to profits (most digital media companies lose money).

btw. Dell wasn’t a big media spender until after they became a major corporation. Starbucks, however was as was E-trade, pretty much all mobile telephone brands. The Macintosh had a particularly famous Super Bowl launch. Apple continues to launch new brands with significant media spend, etc.

Finally, there are the realities of campaign performance and digital simply does not fill many briefs, if it did, more advertisers would be willing to put more of their budgets there. Right now, they’re not.

- Greg

Please read a little more carefully. I specified both NEW brands, and in the past two decades. I.e. since the time when network theory and digital media became applicable to the building of a non-established brand names.

Nike, Dove, Apple, Tide, Coca Cola, Doritos, Toyota, Honda: I remember them from when I was a child. The popularity of the internet was still 20 years in the future.

Dominoes, Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco: 1960s and before.

O2 and Vodafone might be good examples but interesting that due to the importance of mobile phone technology in our daily lives even the brands that do almost no advertising are still household names. To be fair, same could be said for Google.

I’m still convinced that times have changed. More and bigger new household brand names were built using either no traditional mass media or far less than the brand names of the previous generation. The fact that with no advertising and within a short few years Facebook became a bigger brand name than Wal-Mart says a lot about the new rules.

Finally, digital spend is low? Where then did Google get all their money?

@Clyde, yes Dell could be a good example. Thank you. For my information, do you remember the types of adverts that made you aware of Dell? I personally heard of Dell through word of mouth so I don’t remember a lot of ads. Interestingly enough, Dell was one of the earliest and most successful supporters of social media.