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FunctionFox is committed to helping smaller creative companies improve their business. TimeFox, our web-based time and project tracking tool, is designed to help smaller advertising, design, marketing and PR firms manage their business, and do more with their valuable time.
This month's article (written by a TimeFox customer) offers some insights into what effect the Open Source Economy has had on the way consumers receive information and how advertising mediums and methods are evolving.
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Feature Article: Advertising as We Know it is Dead
Talk to the Fox: Tracking Project Statuses and Workflow
Contact FunctionFox
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Advertising as We Know It is Dead
By Shannon Carter, President, Cartis Group
If traditional advertising isn't dead, it's certainly on its deathbed. The Open Source economy is quickly replacing and will continue to replace traditional advertising methods. Open Source is a term that first described a software revolution, i.e. Linux. The term has now evolved into any open forum in which the general public can contribute to the greater public knowledge base. Marketing people may have heard the idea referred to as "Listenomics" or the "Reverse Flow Economy." Commonly known Open Source devices such as epinons.com, blogs, Wikis and Pod casting are quickly changing the marketing/advertising profession. Open Source opinions are affecting everything from buying decisions to political public opinions. Agencies that do not adjust to these changes will whither and die along side their 30-second television commercial.
Once upon a time, the 60-second radio spot and 30-second television commercial ruled the advertising kingdom. That day is over. The proliferation of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders), satellite radio and Video-on-Demand are testaments to consumers' willingness to pay a fee to avoid traditional advertising. Comcast alone has served more than one billion videos on demand in the first three quarters of 2005. According to most consumers age 25-44, the main reason for owning a DVR is time shifting—recording a program for viewing at a more convenient time. The second reason is advertising avoidance. What about syndication you ask? Thanks to Apple's video iPod, viewers can download an entire season of their favorite show to watch at their leisure...commercial-free. Jamie Kellner, Chairman/CEO, Turner Broadcasting System, said it best, "The television business cannot exist unless consumers are willing to give time for marketers."
According to Verisign, the time consumers spend online is now about equal to time spent watching television for most age demographics—in some desirable segments, it's even greater. Because people are spending more time online, analysts expect advertising dollars to follow user behavior. Currently, only 4% of advertising budgets are spent online versus approximately 25% spent on television advertising. However, nearly 85% of advertisers plan to increase online advertising budgets in 2006 and 50% of those plans to decrease the amount they spend on traditional advertising channels.
Print advertising is not immune to consumer apathy either. Magazine and newspaper readership has been consistently declining for decades. Even Playboy, one of the most successful magazines in history, decreased its guaranteed paid circulation by 4.7% this year. Along with declining readership, publications have to deal with reader skepticism regarding the separation of editorial and advertising. A recent survey of magazine readers by Starcom USA found that 65% of readers believe that marketers pay for placement in editorial features.
Mobile advertising, blogging, Pod casting, word-of-mouth marketing and other guerrilla tactics are also eroding the beachhead of traditional advertising. Innovative advertising vehicles like these are some of the fastest-growing (and most controversial) advertising line items for business-to-consumer and business-to-business advertisers alike. Parallel to these, marketing dialog channels like epinions.com are putting much more control into the hands of the end user. Ignore these, and you will find yourself a laggard in the marketplace as well as in the minds of an increasingly savvy customer base.
Am I suggesting that all traditional marketing be scrapped? No, that would be foolish. There is a place for an evolved type of advertising. Our friends at GSD&M have it right—advertising is an uninvited guest in consumers' homes. That guest must be intriguing, captivating and/or enlightening to be invited back. As marketing experts, we must have a deeper understanding of consumer behavior. We must create advertising that gets invited back and be able to navigate the new consumer landscape.
Sounds easy, right? It's not! Creating great advertising has always been difficult and it always will be. That's one of the reasons we have a love/hate relationship with this business. The first step is acknowledging the landscape has changed and will continue to do so. The next step is getting to know the new Open Source economy.
To follow are some tips to help guide you through marketing in the Open Source economy.
TIPS
- Don't fight public opinion—you'll lose. If your company, product or service is falling under attack by an Open Source forum, you have a few choices. First, ignore it...maybe it will go away...yeah, kinda like syphilis. Second, fight it...
More...
This article has been provided by Cartis Group. For more information, please visit their website at www.cartisgroup.com.
If you have an article that you would like to share, please contact us at 1.866.369.8463 or email
info@functionfox.com.
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Tracking Project Statuses and Workflow
Question:
How can TimeFox help me track workflow and prepare for potential congestion or time crunches in my company?
Answer:
TimeFox can help you track projects as they move through your company, so you will know at a glance the status of every project, and be able to spot potential trouble spots before they begin to affect workflow. The first step is to create a variety of status options to represent the typical workflow in your company. Each project – in any company – must typically pass through several steps between the time it is opened and closed. TimeFox lets you set up completely customized terminology for each of these steps, so you can track these steps using terms that are familiar to everyone in your company.
By setting up major milestones or breaking down all your open projects into phases, you will be able to understand quickly what stage each project is at, without the need to check in with others. You will also be able to produce an accurate status report that allows more productive analysis of project details, deadlines and due dates, so you will be able to spot potential problem areas and deal with them before they begin to have an impact.
TimeFox companies organize open projects in several ways. Here are just a few of them:
- By project task to be performed: Concept Development, Copywriting, Design, At Printer, With Client, Ready To Bill, etc.
- By who will do the work – smaller companies often define the status of a project by whose desk the project is sitting on: With Sue, With Bob, With Client, With Freelancer, Ready to Bill, etc.
- By department: Pre-Production, Art Department, Web Department, Copywriting, Billing/ Accounting, etc.
If every project must flow through all status steps, it helps to number each status option in the order it will be performed (1. Concept Development, 2. Copywriting, etc.) This way projects will show up in logical order on your status report and on your CEO Desktop. Please Note: It is better to limit the number of status steps, rather than including every possible step in the progress of a project. Fewer steps make it easier for a traffic or project manager to update status on a daily basis, and more frequent updating means greater accuracy. To update the status of multiple projects, go to SETUP> Project Status.
Below is sample of CEO Desktop Status that lets you see all open projects sorted by status, including how many days until due date and total hours spent. To see how you can use detailed reports from this status page please try our online
demo.
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Questions? Comments? Inquiries?
Call: Toll-Free 1.866.369.8463
E-mail: info@functionfox.com
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