The March 1, 2010 edition of Fortune Magazine & the February’s edition of News & Tech highlighted the barrage of new e-Readers hitting the markets. So what’s the hype?
From the Fortune article titled, “The Future of Reading”, by Josh Quittner, it states how the once highly touted internet ad CPM revenue now stands at a dismal 10%. Or quoting, “today online ads bring in junk CPMs, - about 10% of the revenue per 1000 views compared with print”. To calculate CPM, find the cost for an ad, then divide it by the total circulation the ad reaches (in thousands).
As Publishers adapt their content to the new digital mediums, some revenue models are pay-per-content, subscriptions, and ad revenue based on CPM. However, in the article it stated one brilliant method to solve the low internet CPMs with e-Readers and Tablets is to serve up full screen display ads. Or quoted by Josh, “many publishers will be able to thrive on advertising revenue alone”. So to get to the next page one will have to click on an ad, the whole ad, and nothing but the ad (emphasis added). Should Publishers take this new ad CPM revenue model and e-Reader ubiquity to the bank?
What is ubiquity? To classify a device or product as ubiquitous implies it is everywhere, and everyone has one. The closest digital item to ubiquity today is the cell phone. But for the cell phone to have reached this state, as being a “near ubiquitous’ device for talking and sending text messages, it has taken years and is still only at approximately 70% of the US consumer market. The computer has been around for years, with only 52% plus of U.S. households having internet access, smart phones are no where close to being ubiquitous at 20-30% of the market, and e-Readers & Tablets are just starting to make noise on the consumer device radar.
Josh summed it up nice towards the end, “wherever attention flows, money will flow”, assuming e-Readers & Tablets will get a lot of attention. But his statement, I say, also supports past research from McPherters on the value of print, “that print has 8 times the audience and 14 times the pages views over the internet”. Print is ubiquitous!
The GossRSVP’s focus has been and continues to be on marrying one of the only ubiquitous products known to man “print”, with the “near ubiquitous” device the “cell phone”. As I stated before, “print is a web within itself, and the cell phone is the new mouse”. Anything that can be done on the internet with a mouse can be done with print and the cell phone as the mouse; it is just not perfected yet. But it is coming!
No one can contest that e-Readers, Tablets & Smart phones are a great new medium for advertisers and the digital consumer. However, theses devices are still years away from ubiquity which will keep print revenue CPMs at the forefront for a long time, and be further enhanced with interactive features!
By Roger Belanger, Director GossRSVP
For a brochure on interactive features click here: or text rsvpbro to 64842.
