NewsBeat

18 NewsBeat July 2017 By MARK RITSON 7 reasons media advertising declined, 6 ways to recover icking off the final day of the 2017 INMA World Congress Mark Ritson showed the audience what he calls the "Come to Jesus" chart, graphing the changing composition of ad spend in Australia over time. The Morgan Stanley chart displays the significant decline of ad spend in Australian print media. "If anything's going to get you on your knees, it's this chart," said Ritson , a professor at Melbourne Business School and Singapore Management University. "This is a scary chart." Ritson shared seven factors he believes have driven these declines forward since the beginning of 2007. It is an important exercise, he said: "It sounds K negative, but I think it's important to learn the lessons of where we went wrong if we're going to fix things going forward." The factors are: 1. A truly gigantic disruption: The size of change, the speed at which it happened, and the specific impact on news media landed a powerful punch. "I'd argue that even Google would struggle to survive such a severe disruption." 2. Death trope: Media's constant conversation about the currently dying, or those expected to die in the near future. "We're a very funereal discipline. Everyone's dying." 3. Advertisers: Clients often lean on their own habits and preferences to make decisions. Clients are biased, Ritson said, which is why they will support spending decisions even if there is no data to support it — especially when it comes to fads. "Why do advertisers spend money if they don't know something is working or not? I'll tell you why. Because they love new shit." (The latest trend is Real Reality, 1. Ritson jokingly added.) 4. Arrogance: In a great phase in Australia called Rivers of Gold, a culture of over-confidence, poor leadership, and inefficient company structure left the industry unprepared. "We started to think we were better than we were, and that left us vulnerable to disruptors." 5. Editors: Editors as executives created a poor leadership structure, Ritson said. "They weren't the chiefs that we needed at the time." 6. Giving stuff away for free: If he could go back in time, Ritson said he would go back to the World Editors Forum on May 14, 1994 — where they discussed for the first time the implications of digital on news media. "I'd tell them: I'll give you two pieces of advice. Whatever you do, never give anything away for free. And always sign a contract." Mark Ritson Shares his "Coming to Jesus" chart that outlines why advertising has been declining.

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