The new office is based in the Custard Factory within Birmingham’s revolutionary Media and Creative Arts Quarter in Eastside. With other offices in Surrey, Manchester and Edinburgh, Space and Time combine national buying power with an in-depth understanding of local marketplaces, capitalising on the level of insight and insider know-how that only local relationships and on-the-ground account management can offer.

Specialising in media buying, Space and Time are able to research, plan and buy across a range of on- and off-line media, concentrating on recommending appropriate media, achieving the best value for their clients and adding value to the bottom line whilst ensuring the highest levels of customer service.

The new office will be headed up by David Geary who brings over 20 years’ experience to the role, having previously worked in the region for the Post and Mail. David said “I am thrilled to be launching the new office in Birmingham and delighted to bring the very strong offering we have to the region. Not only will our existing clients benefit from additional resource in the Midlands, but we can also offer other businesses in the region a first-rate alternative for their media planning and buying needs.”

Leading brands for example Comet, Priceminister, PluggedIn and CALA Homes have been the first to trial the Adbars each with bespoke features and the agency is busy supplying 20 more or so to various clients and even non-clients through its external relationships with publishers taking the format.

Head of Digital at Space & Time, Jon Clarke said “Advertisers and agencies focus on price and the public spend less focus on web advertising; clients want cheaper media and the user doesn’t find web ads engaging or something in them relevant or helpful to them. What the industry has overlooked is creativity and choice. Adbars offers advertisers and the public multi-format, engaging, social and interesting ads and for publishers the new space on the screen allows them to grow revenues. It’s a win, win, win for all involved.”

The Adbars has blown away the competition so far with CTR above 0.5% and engaging elements doubling that, and then some with their best topping 2.0%. Compare that to industry average CTR of just 0.1% and even lower when bought on a low cost network 0.03% and the value is evident and overwhelming.

The Agency is adding more publishers to their offering which covers retail, entertainment, property, finance, news, travel, sport, NHS Trusts and local borough councils. Publishers can clearly see not only revenue potential in them, but also their quality that allows them to keep their CPM prices higher but even more competitive, which manifests itself in repeat purchases.

The Agency built its own adserver and offers every conceivable statistic so that both publisher/adsales vendor and advertiser can see all ads calls, ads served to page and every click and clickthrough, even how many closes.

The Agency has big ideas for the format in 2012 and their digital team has grown to match the increased output and new iterations of the format Clarke has tucked up his sleeve. If you want to know more then do contact him, he’d be delighted to inspire you with what’s next.

QR codes are all the rage this year. Quick Response codes can be generated in this new iPhone App QR Kit launched by Space & Time Media UK advertising agency and available now in the App Store.

QR Kit lets you instantly generate a QR code on your iPhone and send via email or save to Photo Album.

Its USP is that it can also create a vCard QR code for any contact including those directly in your iPhone’s Contacts list. This feature you will not find on any other App at present.

The QR Kit App will be free to download. In time more bonus features will be added and these will be free to those who downloaded the App before it changes to a pid-for version later this year.

QR codes can be used in marketing, promotion, tagging, e-ticketing, video, print, loyalty systems, intelligent advertising and so much more and are excellent for tieing in cross-platform media ideas and the reporting of quality response. 

Space and Time have also set up a Facebook page for supporters to ‘Like’ and ask questions and post ideas for future udpates   -  QR Kit ‘Like us’ on Facebook

Captain Clickback says more and more clients are asking about the pros and cons of using QR codes in their marketing and it is only right we take the lead and actually create the software and wherewithall for all of them to do this. It’s another foray into mobile apps too for Space and Time, something else they are enjoying getting their super strength teeth into

Cookie law legislation This comes into force on Thursday 26 May and the Information Commissioner’s Office has issued advice to businesses on compliance. New legislation requiring websites to gain users’ consent for cookies.

The document from the data watchdog will help make website owners think about how intrusive their use of cookies is and how to secure consent.

The Government has already made it known it does not want the ICO to take a hard line initially given that technical solutions to compliance with the legislation are still being worked out and the ICO’s advice acknowledges the government support for a “phased approach” but warns companies “cannot ignore these rules”.

It claims that where it receives a complaint about a website it would expect an organisation’s response to show it has a “realistic plan to achieve compliance”.

It will issue separate guidance on how it intends to enforce the new regulations.

Captain Clickback says it’s definitely worth a read-upon this so that you are compliant and any questions you might have contact your account manager at Space and Time. It will affect us all, be you a publisher, advertiser or agency.

Today Google announced that it was to scrap its real estate property listings on February 10th on Google Maps in a number of countries including the UK where it launched only half a year ago.

From day one the service quickly became unwieldy as many estate agent groups and property portals added details of at times the same homes and property on top of one another and although back then it was thought by estate agents and new home builders’ to be the answer to expensive property portal listings they otherwise had to fork out, Google has once again a failing service that didn’t live up to expectation for them or the public.

The only winners are the major property portals, especially Rightmove who have seen the most serious competitor offering a free listing service pull out of their yard.

The UK’s largest property planning and buying media agency, Space & Time Media’s Head of Digital, Jon Clarke, was quick to comment at the UK launch that ‘Although helpful, the multiple property listings on top of one another would deter users on Google and without them constantly reminding the public of the (property map) service it would end in tears’. Back then he was quoted as saying “Google is a search engine, not a portal, it provides the means for others to utilise its search functions, but it is not a portal or listings provider. It’s not the silver bullet advertisers are looking for.”

Captain Clickback says it looks like he called the play dead right and on the button

More later folks!

Captain Clickback

It seemed at best an unlikely plan when it was announced last year that Alexander Lebedev and his team intended to move the Evening Standard from paid to free distribution. However after just 9 months the paper has begun making money. Doubling the print costs and bidding farewell to the revenue made from newspaper sales, in the middle of a recession no less, was a tremendously bold move. But research has shown that all those additional copies are actually being read, and the beneficial effect this has had for advertisers has seen the coffers filling up once more.

Captain Clickback says: “with politicians stopping you in the street and patting down your pockets for loose change before taking your shoes and sending you on your way, this switch to free distribution was an intuitive masterstroke. The Standard used to sell 1,600 papers at Oxford Circus on a good day. Today, they can easily give away 20,000 copies there. Although owned and managed by the same team, it’s doubtful that the ailing Independent will follow the Standard into free distribution, but there are bound to be some interesting changes afoot.”

Metro

Associated spent a day in court recently, taking out an injunction against the humorous politickists who published a spoof version of their free commuter newspaper, Metro. Metr0, as it was called, drew attention to the new government’s stance on immigration law by leading with a fake story that Gordon Brown was being forcibly repatriated to Scotland. 20,000 copies of the paper were given out in central London, none of the paper’s other 32 areas of distribution were targeted.

Ad Decline slowing

Reports on ad spend for the first quarter of 2010 have shown that the news for local newspapers is still bad, but is getting worse slower than it has been of late. The amount spent on local press advertising Jan-March was 5.2% down on the same period last year. So far, so bad, but if you consider that Oct-Dec 2009 was 14.1% down on Oct-Dec 2008, things suddenly start to look like they might be bottoming out.

Captain Clickback says: “much of this almost-improvement will be due to classified advertisers finding the money once more to do more than just pay the wage bill and hope that nobody asks for the rent, however media mix is also playing a part here. Over the last 2-3 years many advertisers will have eschewed print media in favour of an entirely digital campaign. Now that the budget allows it, many will now be recognising the value of a more varied schedule.”

6 Music

N o real news for advertisers here you might think, but BBC 6Music’s 11^th hour rescue is solid news for DAB broadcasting. The BBC’s commitment to raise the station’s profile and listener base rather than close it down is shoe in foot with the government re-opening discussions on a switch off date for FM broadcasting: if we are all finally going to make the switch to DAB, the Beeb will have a vital role to play in creating and promoting DAB content worth listening to. The station’s survival could also be seen as a victory for social media, as campaigns on Facebook and activity on Twitter contributed to the BBC Trust receiving more than 25,000 emails asking that the station be kept open.

Captain Clickback says: “we need to either conclude our ablutions promptly or get off the pot with all this DAB business. The technology is nearly 30 years old and we’re still arguing about the switchover. It’s chickens and eggs though- the investment in signal strength will only come when listenership is high enough, but listenership will only be high enough once the signal strength is sufficient for DAB car stereos to be worth having. While we’re on the subject, since it is necessary by definition that a chicken has to have been born from an egg, but not similarly inherent in the nature of eggs that they must be laid by a chicken, clearly the egg came first. Furthermore, since mutation occurs only during reproduction, it’s surely inescapable that the first chicken as we know it will have been born from an egg laid by a not-quite chicken. But I digress.”

The Manchester Wall has Fallen

Having the confidence and the business acumen to beat Murdoch to the punch and put a paywall around your website is terrific. Not realising that almost nobody will pay up to £60 a year to read local gossip and restaurant reviews on Manchester Confidential is a terrific way to alienate users, lose face all over the shop and save yourself the bother of having to send out invoices to advertisers. Publisher Mark Garner won’t reveal how many of ManCon’s 260,000 free readers signed up to be paid-for subscribers to his website, but having reverted to a free model, is no doubt relieved that instead of being termed ‘a failure’ in the trade press it’s largely being described as ‘an experiment’.

Captain Clickback says: “It’s both unfair and inaccurate to compare ManCon to the Times, but nuts anyway. So long as a similar product is available elsewhere for free, it’s difficult to see why anybody would pay for their news online. It’s a brave or foolish imaginary media superhero who suggests that Murdoch has it wrong, but nuts anyway. Forcing users to pay for content will put a huge dent in user numbers, impacting advertising revenue, and while people can visit the BBC’s offering free of charge, why wouldn’t they?”

If you would like more detail on any of the issues discussed in this email, your Space and Time contact will be delighted to help.

See You Next Time!!

Poor ABCs for Regional Press

The most recent six-monthly ABC figures were released recently. Covering the back half of 2009, the numbers provide further evidence of the continued decline in circulation across nearly all local press titles. Among daily, weekly, paid and free titles the trend was overwhelmingly negative, which will put further strain on cashflow as newspaper sales and advertising revenues suffer. The Liverpool Echo suffered a 9.5% year on year decline, dropping below the 90,000 copies mark with its figure of 88,519. Business title the Yorkshire Post misplaced 5.7% of its sales as it slipped to 43,095, while the Glasgow Evening Times’ circulation dropped by 13.2%, to 59,365.

Commentators describe the decline as the inevitable outcome of a trend begun in the early noughties, wherein readers began to turn away from print media, finding instead their news, events listings and classified advertising online. The continued success of the Metro is also seen as contributing to the decline, while the impact of the recession has only exacerbated the situation.

Captain Clickback says: “The story stays the same here, but the numbers keep getting smaller, particularly in large cities where the commuter is king, people surf the web al desko and the Metro is thriving. It’s worth noting that one of the few titles to do well, the Dorset Echo, is not only a more rural title, but one which switched from evening to morning publication shortly before the period in question. Despite a brace of innovations and shrewd ideas like the shift of titles such as the Echo and the Birmingham Mail from evening to morning distribution, the paid/free model adopted by the MEN, or the Bath Chronicle’s move from daily to weekly distribution, it would be a brave media pundit who could offer more than an apologetic grimace to the regional publishing industry. Over a long enough timeline, the printed word will surely return to nought, as will we all.”

London Evening Standard Raking in the Readers

Another among those brace of press innovations that I mentioned earlier, the Evening Standard’s move to free distribution and huge increase in print saw dividends in the most recent National Readership Survey results. The number of people reading the average issue rose by 133% year on year, to a fairly impressive 1.39m: a figure well above the readership of the smaller national titles (step forward The Guardian, we know you’re there. And you FT, and bring the Indie with you).

As Russian oligarch (an alarmingly difficult word to type) Alexander Lebedev crosses the t’s and dots the i’s, j’s and umlauts on his deal to buy the Independent, word is that a similar free model will be adopted there. Given the slow and lingering death being suffered by the beleaguered national lefty title, many there might find some significant solace in the turnaround achieved at Evening Standard towers.

Captain Clickback says: “Does the Cyrillic alphabet even use umlauts? Wouldn’t the contracts be written in English anyway? What on earth was I thinking? Does it really matter? Probably not. We’ll gloss over that and move on. Nobody noticed. It’s fine.”

Congleton Chronicle, How Appt

Another of those new innovations in the press marketplace. The Congleton Chronicle has come over all technical and released its very own free app for the iPhone. The downloadable widget allows the user to browse an e-version of the first seven pages of the newspaper. The rest of the paper is available to people who opt to pay a subscription of £2.39 per month.

Captain Clickback says: “The Chron is the first newspaper to have its own branded app which gives access to the full version of the newspaper. The numbers are likely to be very small at first, but this is at least a move in the right direction. It’s also probably an idea to start demanding a position in the first seven pages if you use this title regularly!”

Technophiles One & All

The 2010 award for not entirely surprising statistic goes to a recent Microsoft funded survey, which found that young men are the heaviest users of the internet. Most use it everyday and describe it as the piece of technology they are most attached to. 99% of young men go online either everyday or nearly everyday, half of them using their mobile phones to do so.

25% of young men (‘young’ is defined as 18-44, I’m sure some of you will be pleased to know) claimed to check their emails before they get out of bed, while 18% look at social networking sites on their mobile phones first thing. 60% of this group visit a social networking site at least once each day, and 94% use email everyday. The strength of video on demand among this demograph is worthy of note: 73% of them watch VoD at least once per week.

Captain Clickback says: “Computers have made the move out of the spare bedroom and into the living room (or, it would seem, the bed). 25% of men aged 18-44 watch VoD in the living room while their partners watch television. We can buy video advertising on pre-roll networks, at a surprisingly cheap rate.”

We’re All For The High Jump

…if left-leaning thinktank Compass get their way. The quango philosphiserists recently proposed a total ban on all advertising in public spaces, all advertising aimed at the under 12s and restrictions on shopfront promotions. These musings have found resonance with recent pronouncements made by David Cameron about what he perceives as the sexualisation of children and the destruction of the family, brought about by the declining standards of the media.

Captain Clickback says: “It’s at most unlikely that anybody’s going to systematically dismantle a worldwide industry worth nearly £300bn, but in the race to say sensible things ahead of the general election, it’s probably inevitable that the finger of neo-Victorianism will get wagged at all and sundry.”

Did You Know…

The government’s Central Office of Information is the UK’s largest advertiser with commercial radio. During the run up to a general election, the moratorium on all forms of broadcast advertising by government agencies means that radio networks have a glut of airtime to shift. This can only be terrific news for you the advertiser as rates fall and the chances of free over-delivery increase drastically.

That’s your lot for another issue. If you’d like any more information on any of these stories, you can either reply to this email or contact your Space and Time team.

See you next time!!

Captain Clickback

Free As Standard
Hopefully all those of you with no direct interest in the London market will forgive me for kicking off with one of the most significant media stories of recent months: on the 12th of October the Evening Standard went from paid to free distribution, increasing its print run by more than double, to 600,000 copies. Distribution is still handled by the existing staff of sales people as well as through pick up bins at train and tube stations, in WHSmiths and supermarkets across London. In terms of setting a precedent this piece of news has implications for all of us: as they’ve been so keen to point out, the Standard is “the first quality paper in the world to go free”, and publishers everywhere will no doubt be following events in the capital closely.

Captain Clickback says: “Given that the Standard has sacrificed its paper sales revenue and incurred extra print and distribution charges in order to increase its sales revenue, it’s reasonable to assume that rate increases are in the offing but, as you’d expect, the team at Space and Time Towers will be working to ensure that the paper remains an affordable option.”

Morning Time in North West

The Evening Leader group, covering Wrexham, Chester and Flintshire, has announced plans to rename itself The Leader and move to morning distribution. Following a period of circulation decline the shift in publication time will accompany a general revamp of the group’s titles. This change represents the latest in a string of regional papers shifting from evening to morning publication, including the Brighton Argus, Lancs Telegraph, Southend Echo, Derby Telegraph, Plymouth Herald and Portsmouth News.

Change Afoot in Birmingham
A raft of changes to Trinity Mirror’s presence in the west midlands has been unveiled, including a move from paid daily to paid weekly distribution for the Birmingham Post, and the Birmingham Evening Mail dropping the “Evening” from its title as it switches to morning distribution.

Metro
In a move that threatens to limit the local relevance of various editions of Metro around the country, the commuter freesheet has closed five of its regional editorial offices, namely Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle, Birmingham and Bristol. The centralisation of the editorial process will primarily have an impact on the local arts, entertainment and food sections of the paper.

Captain Clickback says: “This is one of the unfortunate effects of the recession- where publishers are being forced to cut costs and consolidate roles, it is inevitable that content will be rolled out from a central source and that the local media consumer will miss out. We can see the same thing happening with the rise in syndicated content across the new Heart radio network as well as in Manchester where the likes of the Rochdale Observer, Salford Advertiser and the Macclesfield Express are now all written from the centre of Manchester following the closure of the firm’s satellite offices.”

How do Online and Offline Media Work Together?

Some research undertaken at Space and Time demonstrates rather aptly how advertising in the local press drives increases in web traffic and changes the nature of the terms searched for on Google. By overlaying press schedules with Google Adwords reports, it’s possible to see how site-specific press ads increase the number of searches carried out for that site’s marketing name (“The Towers Reigate” for example), while during periods with no other advertising activity the site-specific searches decline and the most common relevant search terms refer instead to the development’s location (such as “New Homes in Reigate”).

Captain Clickback says: “At a time when Online ad spend has overtaken TV’s advertising revenue, it’s important to remember that for all its strength, online media is only a part of the ideal media mix and doesn’t necessarily represent a campaign in its entirety. Although online is an extremely hardworking medium and PPC is ultimately accountable, this shows how there’s still a space for press advertising on the average schedule. It also provides a useful lesson that your last point of contact with a new lead before they visit the showroom wasn’t necessarily the same medium through which they first heard about your site.”

Property Factoids
1 in 97 – proportion of UK homes valued at more than £1m at the height of the housing boom in 2007 according to website Zoopla

1 in 150 – proportion of UK homes valued at over £1m today

Print 2.0

The ridiculously long-memoried among you will remember a story from August 07 (yes, that’s issue 34 for all you Clickback aficionados, a rather lovely epistle you’ll remember, with a delicate turn of phrase, black body text and a striking blue title font) about “reverse published” titles in the North East composed entirely from editorial already published on hyper local websites. Now a similar idea has reached London, with the launch of The Blogpaper (no, I said “BLOGpaper”, “BLOG”, oh nevermind), which is, as you may have guessed, a print version of the best the blogosphere has to offer. The composition of the paper is dictated by the result of online votes at theblogpaper.co.uk. The bloggers work for free, but the publication will carry paid-for advertising, so someone’s doing well somewhere.

Local Papers Save the Day

How do you stay in touch with local community news when there’s no power, your router’s soggy and the broadband exchange is 3 feet under the swollen eddies of the river Cocker? Local Press of course! The awful events seen in Cumbria over recent days have demonstrated that there’s life in the old dog yet, as the Times and Star, the weekly title covering Workington and Cockermouth, overcame supply, power and transport difficulties to publish three issues in one week, keeping the local people up to date with vital information about their community.

That’s your lot for another issue. If you’d like any more information on any of these stories, you can either reply to this email or contact your Space and Time team.

See you next time!!

Captain Clickback