Print Advertising Trumps Television, Go Microsoft!

Print advertising is more than twice as effective as television advertising for large retailers, according to new data seen by The Times.  The anonymous participants of the study, which was carried out by Microsoft Advertising (NASDAQ:MSFT), included large clothing stores, big grocery retailers, fashion retailers and department stores.

(TIMESONLINE.CO.UK) The study comes as online advertising is rising and predicted to rise further. Deloitte, the professional services firm, forecast that online advertising’s global share would grow from its current 10 per cent to 15 per cent by 2012.

Although online advertising spending fell roughly 5 per cent worldwide during the recession, Deloitte said that “this was still a much smaller decline than almost any other advertising category”.

The findings of Microsoft’s survey run counter to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2007. That looked at ten years of data for more than 700 brands in seven different market sectors. It showed that television advertising delivered £4.50 for every pound spent and that campaigns using the medium were 25 per cent more effective than those which did not.

Tess Alps, chief executive of Thinkbox, a television marketing body, said the Microsoft data was inconsistent with much bigger studies.

SOURCE: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6969081.ece