This was published 8 years ago
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram massively over-rated by marketers, says Prof Mark Ritson
By Dominic White
Marketing executives are so afraid to appear out-of-touch that it has become "career-threatening" to suggest they would rather use television "or God forbid, print" rather than social media for advertising campaigns, according to outspoken British Professor Mark Ritson.
Mr Ritson, who is Professor of Marketing at Melbourne Business School, will argue in a series of lectures to the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA), that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are massively over-rated by marketers, who are rejecting traditional media at their peril.
Professor Mark Ritson says social media advertising channels are vastly over-rated by poorly trained marketing people.
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review he pointed to Nielsen data that shows 63 per cent of people trust advertising formats on TV, and 60 per cent trust print ad formats, but only 46 per cent trust ads served on social networks.
"If any marketer comes to me with a social media marketing budget I know they are an idiot, and poorly trained," Professor Ritson said.
"It's symptomatic of the culture we have created that marketers themselves are reticent to investigate social media in any more detail than saying 'digital is the future'."
He did not blame the slew of new digital and social media agencies, saying they are "doing a really good job" of pushing their message to marketers, but marketing executives who had abandoned their "critical faculties".
"The hegemonic forces of marketing are such that it's now career threatening to suggest that I might prefer to spend my money on TV or, God forbid, print [over social media] – you are not allowed to say that and I find that very distasteful.
"Almost half the coverage on Australian media is on social and digital tools, and yet it will probably be between 8 to 10 per cent of our spend this year."
"I can tell you with absolutely certainty, as I try to tell marketers, that 85 per cent of video is watched on a TV, that I will be met with incredulity, or the idea that radio has been growing for five years in terms of reach," Professor Ritson said.
"All they see is 8 million views on Instagram. The fact is, that is a tiny sliver of video viewing in Australia.
"It is a strange situation. I have never seen anything like it in my time."
Traditional media share prices, including those of TV networks Nine, Ten and Seven, are under pressure as investors fret about the competition for audiences and advertisers from the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
"I have great sympathy for the TV and print world. I hear the same thing again and again, they meet to a client who says 'that's all terrific, but I don't have a budget for TV at the moment'.
"But the [share] market is right because they look at advertisers who are reticent to invest in TV and print, and they say the [traditional media] market is screwed – and they have a point."