Marketing communications of the security market in figures. Part 2.
The first part, “Marketing communications of the security market in figures” (TZ No. 4-2009), presented data characterizing advertising in the technical security equipment market as a whole. This is the volume of advertising for 2008, the distribution of investments between communication means, such as special events (exhibitions), advertising in printed publications and specialized Internet resources, publication of information in catalogs and reference books published once a year, and an assessment of investments in advertising between participants in the technical security equipment market. In addition, the issue of participation in central exhibition events is considered in detail.
In the second part, we will pay attention to advertising in the specialized press.
Advertising in the press
In this context, specialized printed periodicals are considered to be business-to-business magazines and newspapers published at the expense of advertisers (subscription as a form is present on the market, but, as a rule, is an additional source of income) with a certain frequency (for magazines — 6 issues, for newspapers — 5 issues per year).
Diagram 1. Revenue of the specialized press from advertising in 2008
In total, security market participants in the segment of technical security equipment invested 132 million rubles in press advertising in 2008 (approximately 38% of the total investment). As shown in Diagram 1, “Specialized Press Advertising Income in 2008,” more than 68% of the total investment in the printed press went to the magazine “Security Systems” of the communications company “Grotek.” About 12% of the total investment went to the magazine “Protection Technologies” of the publishing house of the same name, about the same amount was invested in advertising in two magazines, “Security Algorithm” and “BDI,” and no more than 4% was invested in advertising in the only newspaper, Security News, published by “Media Focus.”According to the data declared by the editors, the circulation of security publications fluctuates between 10,000 and 20,000 copies. However, these figures are not confirmed by monitoring data or certificates from the National Circulation Service (only the publisher of the Security News newspaper conducted a circulation audit in 2008). Security magazines are distributed mainly by specialized paid and free subscriptions, in industry institutions and at specialized exhibitions.
In total, 1,614 advertising modules/articles «on advertising rights» were published in five magazines (30 issues) in 2008.
We segment advertising by the method of presenting information. As shown in Diagram 3 «Distribution of advertising in magazines by the method of presenting information», 77% of advertising is an advertising module, respectively, 23% of advertising in the industry print media is the publication of articles «on the rights of advertising». In addition to modular advertising and articles «on the rights of advertising», the traditionally priority advertising places are: 2nd cover (+25% to the cost of the page), 3rd cover (+15%) and 4th cover (+40%). Next in popularity is the spread before the content and the page in the content. The most interesting, but little in demand (due to the high cost) is the hard insert (this service was used by 3 market participants, in total 10 hard inserts were placed in a year). The basic strategy of the advertiser is to place advertising in each issue on one advertising module.
Diagram 2. Distribution of advertising in magazines by methods of information presentation
As diagram 2 shows, the greatest demand is for visual information delivery, so let us consider how advertising is distributed in magazines, segmenting by the size of the advertising module. Diagram 4 «Advertising in magazines: distribution by module size» (Appendix 17) illustrates that in the two leading magazines (over 80% of investments in press advertising), about 70% is occupied by modular advertising of the size of a page, the second most popular size (20%) is ⅛ page. In the other three magazines, the share of advertising in a page is no more than 50%, in the magazine «Algorithm of Security» 28% of advertising is advertising in a double-page spread and 21% of advertising is advertising in a ⅛ page. The most uniform indicators are in the magazine «BDI»: 47% is advertising in a page, 22% is advertising 1/3 page, 19% is advertising in a ⅛ page and 13% is advertising in a double-page spread.
Diagram 3: Advertising in magazines: distribution by module size
A special place in the study is occupied by such type of printed products as reference books and catalogues, the main purpose of which is either to provide reference information (contact information by region, area of activity, for example, TZ-address), or catalogues by areas of activity, containing mainly analytical materials. At the same time, 90% of the market (diagram 2.9 appendix 15) of annual catalogues and reference books belongs to the communications company «Grotek», which publishes 7 catalogues. The leading catalogue is the catalogue «Security Systems», in which more than 40% of advertising budgets from the total cost of reference books and catalogues are invested. 10% of the market of reference books and catalogues belongs to the reference book «TZ-address», published in A5 format by the publishing house «Protection Technologies».
Diagram 4. Annual income of publishers of specialized reference books and catalogs
With a frequency of publication once a year and declared high circulations, the cost of advertising is practically no different from the cost of advertising in periodicals.
Internet advertising
According to the data in Diagram 5 «Distribution of Investments in Internet Advertising», unfairly little is invested in Internet communications**, no more than 2.5% of the budget for promotion. At the same time, about 60% goes to advertising on the industry portal Sec.ru, about a quarter of investments — for online promotion goes to advertising on the website of the newspaper Security News — secnews.ru, less than 10% is invested in advertising on the portals security-bridge and techportal.ru.
** In this study, Internet advertising is considered to be advertising on specialized industry Internet portals. This does not include investments in search engine marketing and contextual advertising, as well as investments in the creation and maintenance of corporate and promotional websites.
Diagram 5: Distribution of investments in Internet advertising
On specialized Internet portals, the sale of media advertising (purchase of space for a specific period of time) traditionally prevails, which is mainly of an image nature. Advertising space for special promotions is extremely rare, and mainly on forum pages, in places of meetings and communication of the professional community. The priority advertising space is a banner-stretch at the top of the site on the portal's start page. The standard banner-stretch size is 700 x 90 (1004 x 100) pixels, no more than 25 kb. The next most popular banner sizes are 240 x 80 px and 468 x 60 px, and this is despite the fact that the data transfer speed has recently increased several times and leading general-purpose Internet media have developed and are using other standards.
Traditionally, advertisers prefer to place ads on portal home pages, despite the fact that home pages are visited on average by no more than 10-15% of visitors. Unfortunately, unlike printed periodicals, it is almost impossible to single out and calculate the share of news and releases published at the advertiser's expense on the Internet (portals).
Summary
The second place in the list of investments in advertising in the TSB market is advertising in the specialized press, as well as participation in the publication of directories and catalogs. According to the research, there is a monopolist in the printed press market that owns market shares of 68% and 90% (magazines and catalogs, respectively), so the cost of advertising in these publications is at least 3 times overstated. Modular advertising prevails in the market, despite the fact that this is a market of high-tech goods, the traditional strategy of the advertiser is the placement of one advertising module in each issue in conjunction with a paid article or publication of analytical material.
As for the Internet as an advertising medium, in our case only one method of conveying information to the audience is considered — placing advertising on specialized sites, where, as a rule, the professional community gathers. The placement of graphic and animated information on these sites is typical in cases of introducing a new product to the market. This study does not cover such methods of attracting an audience to a site as search engine marketing and contextual advertising.
The third and final part will present material devoted to the interaction of the product life cycle and advertising.
Questions, comments and suggestions can be sent to the author by e-mail: vladimir@narozhny