You media guys need a shakeup, say U.S. advertising buyers

A survey about investment expectations in the U.S., carred out by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) says that executives think traditional media categories like magazines are in need of a shakeup; 46 per cent of those surveyed say that business magazines need to innovate if they are to remain competitive, followed (in descending order) by:

• Women's Service (25 percent)
• Fashion and Beauty (18.8 percent)
• Men's (17 percent)
• Shelter (12.5 percent)

73% of the respondents said that 20% of their budgets is now reserved for experimentation in new media and more than 12% said they reserved up to 40%, money that would otherwise have gone to traditional media like magazines.

An overwhelming majority of respondents (87%) said that they felt the pace and scope of innovation in the marketplace encouraged creativity.

• 78% said "I am always open to new ways to use traditional media"
• 75% said "the right media mix almost always includes a balance of traditional and nontraditional media" and
  
• 58% said "the search for new media properties to grow my brand never stops"
  

The AAF Media Investment Survey 2007 questioned close to one thousand advertising industry leaders in the U.S., spread across agency (38 percent), media (26.9 percent), advertiser/client (13.6 percent) and other (21.4 percent, composed mostly of suppliers and academics) sectors, with the majority being at the director (19 percent), owner (18 percent) or manager (17.6 percent) level. Nearly 31 percent of participants are part of a team that makes the final media investment decision for their company.

If you want to see the whole PowerPoint presentation of the survey results (only part of which relates to magazines) you can dowload it here.