Who is in control of your brand?

This is news to nobody, however, the doom and gloom that the media push out about the drastic financial future is mostly setup to get an audience and sell advertisng. (In my opinion)

Yea, great, whatever, but what do I have to back this up…?

Well in 2008 it wasn’t kept quiet that the automotive industry is dying, and too right, those big metal carbon producing cars are against our Good Australian Morals, right? Well, yea, wait no, 2008 was one of the biggest years in history. According to the FCAI’s (Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries) recent news release.

There was certainly a dip in the last quarter, but based on the first 9 months the Australian automotive sector had sold enough cars for the entire year that the last 3 didn’t matter.

The automotive sector sold over 1,000,000 units which resulted in the second highest sales figures on record… WHAT? So we’re running out of money?

Sure the future might be bleak, but hey, lets look at that… Today one of Australia’s top advertising industry magazines B&T’s second article was a positive one about confident consumers, HOWEVER…

The Australian Centre for Retail Studies (ACRS) revealed there is optimism among
Australians for the year ahead,
…
79% said they are unlikely to buy a car in the next 12 months.

79%? WOW that’s a big percentage, but wait, how often to we buy cars, every year? No, of course not every couple of years, so if 21% of people are buying a car this year that’s pretty good. So sure, the FCAI say they’re predicting 880,000 sales, a 12% drop from all time highs, or on the flip side, a very good year. If anything I think petrol prices would’ve freaked everyone out and encouraged them to use fossil fuel free/efficient transport, like bikes (which had their biggest year ever, and outsold cars in unit numbers!).

Simon Burrett, managing director of The Foundry and chairman of ACRS Advisory Board said: “I don’t buy into the ‘sky is falling, everything is a disaster’ theory. I’m seeing consumer confidence rising and I think the press tends to focus on what’s happening overseas, which has been doom and gloom, but what I’m seeing locally is that customers aren’t buying into it.” Burrett said advertisers should come to market with confident statements: “We need to let customers believe that it’s going to be OK.”

What do you think? Have you noticed a ‘real world’ impact, i.e. friends losing jobs, maybe you’ve lost money in shares, people ranksacked your house or maybe you’re not buying a car?

Thanks to Laurel Papworth,  I discovered that in the US internet has overtaken newspaper as a primary source of news 40% (internet) to 35% (newspaper). Another amazing stat is that the percentage has grown from 24% to 40% from the same time last year.

However, considering all this, TV still dominates as a primary news source for all people at 70%.

One powerful finding shows that 59% of people under 30 yrs old see the internet as a primary source, this is up from 34% last year, equating to about 50% growth. On the flip side, TV has declined from 68% to 59%, a 11% decrease.

And as Laurel Papworth puts it

Remember, 71% of Australians don’t trust the printed word. Many more trust online news. And the Pew study confirm that 2008 was the year that that view went global.

*Research: Pew – Figures add to more than 100% because multiple responses were allowed

If I were in the newspaper business I’d be thinking of a new name for my industry, without the news, its just paper, and Reflex are doing pretty well in that space.

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