Downturns, Data, and a Dare

Downturns, Data, and a Dare

Last week in the February 18, 2008 issue of Advertising Age,the headline article by Bradley Johnson was entitled “Media Work Force Sinks to 15-Year Low.” So jobs were bad in the last recession of the early 1990s and they’re bad again. OK…

 

Downturns, Data, and a Dare

The article’s graph clearly shows media jobs peaking during the dotcom bubble, rapidly shrinking, but finally leveling off for the past few years and then most recently a sharper slope in the wrong direction. Part of the reason, the article states, is because of the bad times that have befallen the newspaper industry. The other is that there are other choices for marketers “beyond paid media.”

That last reason could be analyzed further. More choices mean determining relative values in order to make the best choice. The relative value of any decision then needs to be measured and in marketing, that means ROI. The greater the ROI, the greater the likelihood of be being selected. I cannot tell it any simpler.

The good news is while the net number is down, especially due to the decrease in in newspaper, TV broadcasting, cable, radio and direct mail jobs in the past year, there are categories where job growth is up: in advertising and marketing services including digital graphic design, and internet media.

Note to CMOs: “push” media companies = job loss… net-centric media companies = job gain.

Agencies pay attention; there will always be creative needed for the “art” of marketing; but there will be more jobs for the “science” of marketing as C4ISR marketing demands analytical and statistical finesse for web analytics, campaign management, data mining, business intelligence, and mangaing digital asset management (DAM), CRM, EMM or MRM platforms.

The Marketing Consigliere dares anyone to prove him incorrect.

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