According to broadcaster, ex-Media Watch host and media stalwart, Jonathan Holmes, spends on digital advertising don’t translate to any content being created meaning bad news for journalists, writers and content producers.
Holmes hosted the recent Broadcast Digital Media Summit in Sydney and put to the audience that a dollar spent in newspapers was a dollar back to journalists. Likewise, a dollar spent on TV was money that went back to making new programs. However, a dollar spent on mobile advertising never flowed back to content creation.
However, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Alice Manners, disagreed with Holmes’ assessment of the media landscape.
Manners argued that there would be an ever increasing need for online content, particularly around video, with a focus on locally made Australian material.
“Online needs good content to drive audiences, you need to have the right ways of search to take someone to that, and you need those beautiful brands to advertise,” Manners argued.
“The ‘triangle’ has always been there, it will shift and now there’s a real move to content now. You’re seeing those newspaper journalists moving to the digital world to help develop that content. The investment is still going into content, just in different ways.”
Holmes, however, cited sites like Seek.com.au that didn’t require any content at all to be financially successful.
“What’s interesting now is the need for the investment in the technology,” said Manners. “It sounds dull but I think that’s the challenge to find the technology to get you to look at those data pieces across the journey, to look at what you put back in.
“It’s about understanding your consumer’s usage on mobile and then adding video where you can. It is a higher engagement, it is understanding there is a higher CPM, and that comes with value. The other thing around pricing will be around ‘viewability’, where you pay on someone having seen your ad rather than just CPM,” Manners said.
