Wireless carrier advertising trends may have turned a corner during last year’s winter holiday season. Many industry experts believe carriers are beginning to spread their advertising dollars throughout the year, rather than devoting a huge chunk of the advertising budget to the holidays.
Bruce Janklow, chief executive officer of TradeOne Marketing, a firm that studies newspaper advertising trends of cellular carriers, said the percentage of holiday advertising compared with the rest of the year was down slightly, from more than 33 percent in past years to about 29 percent last year.
“The good news is the amount they spent on advertising during the holidays stayed the same,” said Janklow, who noted that spending on advertising throughout the year was up, which drove down the holiday proportion. “The amount of holiday advertising didn’t grow proportionately with the rest of the year.”
Janklow had predicted that last year’s holiday advertising figures would fall in line with historical figures of about one-third of the cellular advertising occurring in November and December.
Cellular carrier 3607 Communications Co. fit into Janklow’s assessment of the holiday advertising trend. The company said it spent about $62.3 million during the fourth quarter on sales, marketing and advertising expenses. That figure is about the same as sales, marketing and advertising expenses of $63 million for the fourth quarter of 1996.
But about 27 percent of 360’s annual spending on sales, marketing and advertising came during the fourth quarter of 1997, down slightly from 1996 when the company did about 31 percent of its spending on sales, marketing and advertising during the fourth quarter.
“The holidays are not getting less important,” said Janklow. “Other events throughout the year are getting more important.”
Hunt Eggleston, president of Technology Trends and Focus Inc., agreed carriers are beginning to spread their ad efforts throughout the year and attributed the trend to increasing competition.
“In the past when there were only two players in a given market, 40 percent of advertising came during the last three months of the year,” he said. “Now with four or five players, they can’t all put their money into the holidays and get the subscriber numbers they need for their business plan, so they spread their advertising throughout the year.”
Eggleston said carriers will begin offering more promotions centered around Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, graduation and Father’s Day. Other promotions will surface depending on what type of customers carriers are trying to reach. For example, carriers trying to reach a younger subscriber base might begin to offer back-to-school promotions.
Other marketing experts say carriers invent promotions throughout the year in order to drive up sales during months when subscriber numbers aren’t keeping pace with expectations.
Another advertising trend that may change is the amount of advertising focused on brand awareness rather than actual promotions.
“There’s a belief in the industry by big players that brand is critical, and they are spending a lot of money on brand advertising,” said Eggleston. “Brand advertising doesn’t drive traffic, though. Promotional advertising does.”
Eggleston said within the next year or two, carriers will begin putting out more promotional advertising, which offers specific deals to potential subscribers, and less brand advertising.
Eggleston also said carriers will have to shift their advertising away from expensive TV advertising and toward newspaper and billboard ads. Carriers, he said, will have to pick a specific customer segment and put advertising in the places most likely to reach that segment.
