What Media Analysts Really Think Mark Braley, Director, Media Analyst, Deutsche Bank, London, Global Markets Financial analysts who specialize in newspaper stocks have a more positive attitude about them than conventional wisdom suggests. The vast majority in both Europe and the United States recommend buying or holding them, not selling. And the market still values them ahead of market averages, says Mr Braley. But investors might not reflect this attitude. To find out what they really think, Deutsche Bank asked 13 questions of 20 decision-makers in investment firms about their own newspaper habits and investment expectations. Though the sample was small and unrepresentative of the investment community at large, the uniformity of the answers itself is telling, says Mr Braley. The investors, mostly London-based, were heavy newspaper readers, the survey found - more than three paid for and three free newspapers a week. But they believed they read fewer newspapers than their parents, and that their children would read less than they did. They believed newspaper advertising growth would be flat, and overall advertising market growth would be lower than the historical 5 percent annual growth. They believe margins will continue to fall and digital revenues will surpass print revenues in 10 years. They see free newspapers as a negative development and believe there will be less free titles in 10 years. Climate Change in Sales Training Peter Halasz, HR and Corporate Communications Director, Ringier, Hungary When Swiss-based Ringier entered Hungary in 1993, the media market was developing and sales recruits were raw and untrained. The market is mature today, and Mr Halasz presented the evolution of Ringier sales training, taking it from a diverse, media-separate strategy to a single sales team. Ringier, like other large Hungarian publishers, include magazines, newspapers, digital media and events management in a single group. In the early days, it took specialized skills - different titles took different techniques and different talents. But Ringier is moving toward one sales team for all media, as the market matures and customers expect integrated solutions, says Mr Halasz. These are among the keys he cited to the new training regime:  Knowledge of the big picture, not just sales techniques.  Market research - knowing the market better than the clients.  Strong technical background in analytics, customer relationship management. A case for multi-media sales teams Eamonn Byrne, Business Director, World Association of Newspapers Multi-channel sales teams or single channel experts? Though training for single channel sales is easier, faster, cheaper and develops deep knowledge and expertise in individual media, a multi-channel approach is the only way to go because the clients demand it, says Mr Byrne. "There is not a choice but to train sales people to sell all the channels the company has to sell," he says. "The advertisers are as demanding as they always were. They want reliable delivery, they want good metrics, they want good sales personnel, they want a compelling environment, they want fresh ideas, they want multimedia and they want results. If we don’t deliver this over time, we will fail," says Mr Byrne. But training staff in multimedia sales is a difficult task. There may be resistance. It takes a major investment. And, perhaps most importantly, it must provide a vast amount of knowledge. "The training and development of sales people has traditionally had a lot to do with teaching them sales techniques. It was almost as if the product knowledge they would need, while not taken for granted, was assumed to be the straightforward part of the training. But there has been a sea change," says Mr Byrne. Mr Bryne presented the case of Newsquest in the United Kingdom to show how multi-media sales training might be organised. "The objective is, teaching them to understand the metrics of the media, how it is bought and sold and how they work together," he says. Extending reach through word of mouth Tamas Perjes, Deputy Media Research Director, IPSOS, Szonda, Hungary There is a lot of initiatives to create an integrated online/print audience measurement to better reflect the true reach of newspapers. Mr Perjes is trying to take it even further. Mr Perjes helped create an integrated audience measurement for the Hungarian quality daily Nepszabadse. In addition to print readership and online usage, he’s incorporated "word of mouth effects" and an "engagement" index as well. "When we’re talking about word of mouth effects, when people are reading the online version, they can talk with other people and they can pursue and influence other people well." Mr Perjes demonstrated this by showing the impact of "word of mouth" from Nepszabadse readers on increasing traffic to financial and retail advertisers. He also described an "engagement index" which allowed the paper to compare the level of its readers engagement with advertisers brands, compared to the engagement produced by other papers for the same brand. Competing with Google on Search Mikal Rohde, Vice President, Schibsted, Norway There are two reasons why Google is so successful, says Mr Rohde, who is responsible for integrating search into Schibsted’s newspaper activities. "They’re good at what they do. And the second reason is, the rest of the world doesn’t know what they’re doing," he says. "We have to understand the new business models behind the technology and how we can integrate them into our own businesses," he says. Schibsted has invested heavily to create its own search engine, called Sesam. The reason for doing so is simple: when all information is digitalized, "everything will be stored, everything will be structured and everything will be searchable," said Mr Rohde. In addition to classic search, Schibsted is integrating the technology into other uses. These include:  a news aggregator that provides content from all sources, with related links - people connected to the stories, pictures from Schibsted and others, TV clips related to the story, and blog search related to the story.  contextualized advertising, not only providing appropriate keyword searches but display advertising as well. Schibsted’s search revenues are growing rapidly, from 15 million euros in 2006 to 100 million euros expected this year. World Digital Media Trends: A Preview Martha Stone, Director, SFN, World Association of Newspapers The World Association will be publishing its annual World Digital Media Trends at the end of March, and Ms Stone provided a preview of its content. Ms Stone, Director of the WAN Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project, highlighted five trends: internet revenues, mobile revenues, internet and mobile usage trends, niche product development and other product development.  Internet revenues are showing double-digit growth worldwide, yet still are not replacing lost print revenues, she said. New advertising opportunities such as video, blogs and search and growing.  Mobile, which some see as having the largest growth potential of any digital media, has not yet generated the level of revenues expected of it. Even for the newspaper companies pursuing it aggressively, it accounts for less than one percent of revenues. But there are growth opportunities for mobile subscriptions and advertising, Ms Stone said.  In terms of usage, there is rapid growth in online games, digital TV and digital radio. On newspaper websites, there has been rapid growth of blogs, video and comments in the past year.  The growth of new niche products is increasing, producing the so-called "long tail" effect: as printed newspaper market share declines, new print and digital products aimed at niche audiences can increase market share of the newspaper brand.  Market research is informing the creation of new products, with opportunities in gender, age and ethnic publications. These products are opening the door to targeted advertising and qualified audiences. More on the SFN project at www.futureofthenewspaper.com. For more information on Digital Media Trends, contact Ms Stone at mstone@wan.asso.fr. Advergaming for fun and profit Dan Ferguson, Founder and Director of Game Development, Blockdot, USA Those "advergames" like virtual bowling and golf you find in some on-line advertisments that are so addicting? Blame Blockdot. "We’ve generated over half a billion game plays and are responsible for wasting over 100,000,000 hours of productivity," says Mr Ferguson. "We apologize." He’s being facetious, of course. As media fragments and advertising loses impact, on-line games are drawing attention and eyeballs. Mr Ferguson, whose company is owned by the US newspaper group Media General, describes advergames this way: "They are applications and campaigns that are designed to deliver advertising messages, develop brand awareness, educate and entertain. It can be a game, an activity, or something so under the radar it captivates and delivers a message without the user realizing it." "Chances are if you’re over 50, you may view video games as a distraction. If you’re under 50, games are a major part of life. This is similar to how people looked at rock ‘n’ roll in the 60’s. You either got it or you didn’t," he says. Many people get it. On-lime games takes up a vast amount of time people spend online, And it’s true even among older users: Females over 40 using AOL spend nine hours per week, or 41 percent of their on-line time, playing games. Males spend, six hours, or 26 percent of their time. Mr Ferguson provided an overview of the kinds of games that are used in advertising and how they can be effective. Social media: new platforms need new advertisements Miklos Gaspar, Managing Director, Pressflex, Hungary Blogs and social networks present a new type of content that need new types of advertising as well, says Mr Gaspar. In a presentation on "how your competitors (aka readers) are stealing your advertising and how to fight back," Mr Gaspar documented the rapid growth of social media and showed how they provided advertising opportunities for traditional media. But the ads have to be different to fit the genre, he says. First, the ads have to "converse." Smart social media advertisements include multiple links, cool images, video and have a "hand-made" feel. They are designed to provide only part of the story and invite clicks to get the rest. Ineffective ads have no links, are text heavy and "tells rather than shows." Mr Gaspar provided examples of successful social media advertising, including a "viral campaign" by Audi that cost less than .4 percent of total advertising spend but produced 29 percent of total campaign traffic. The campaign used 24 ads on 286 blogs featuring dozens of links to Audi and Audi blogs.