Archive for June 19th, 2006
That’s what Sony has decided to do with the new plug-in media player it has announced.
The player, called MusicBox, allows bloggers to show music videos of Sony’s artists on their websites.
Previously, bloggers and website owners would link to an ‘unauthorized source’ to play such videos, or obtain an illegal digital copy of a video and host it on their site.
After some attempts at legal action by Sony and other music companies, it became apparent that other methods must had to be adopted.
Simply, Sony now seeks to organize this activity, and encourage bloggers to ‘go legal’ at no cost, which brings us to the angle we’re interested in regarding this product.
Sony have found a way to create revenue from this idea by getting sponsors and advertisers to promote their products for a few seconds before a video plays.
Other ad formats that could be used include banners, buttons and links on the media player which can also be offered to advertisers. There are many possibilities.
At the moment, Hewlett-Packard and DreamWorks (the movie production company) have signed up as the first advertisers.
If it works for Sony, it can work for any top music and entertainment company in the world.
Rotana, are you reading this?
Here’s more on Sony’s media player plug-in.
June 19th, 2006
Are online newspaper readers becoming the best online shoppers?
A study by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) shows that frequent readers of newspaper Web sites are more likely to make online purchases than other Internet users.
The study calls them “power users” and says that 82 percent of them who visit a newspaper Web site everyday have bought products online, compared with 55 percent who are less frequent visitors.
Although the survey was conducted in one US city, Minneapolis, it could be indicative of the relationship between online media and shopping habits across the country, and maybe anywhere else in the world.
These newspaper readers also stay online longer, are better educated and earn more money than the average Internet user.
The implications of this study are obvious for advertisers and sellers of online products.
But, the only problem seems to be the source….. a newspaper association, praising newspaper websites 
Still, there’s truth in these findings, and what applies to American online newspapers probably also applies to Arabic ones.
Are you an Arabic online newspaper reader with spending power?
Read more here.
June 19th, 2006
This information isn’t new. It’s been available since March, but it came to my attention again today, and it’s worth thinking about.
According to research published by Pan Arab Research Center (PARC), the Middle East accounts for only 3% of the world’s advertising expenditure.
Depressing?
Actually, it should push us furthur towards getting bigger budgets from multinationals who do not spend enough in our region, relative to the number of consumers we’ve got.
An exception, though, does exist within our region - even if it’s not part of the ‘Middle East calculation’ mentioned above.
Israel gets much more than it’s fair share of advertising spend, which is considerably higher per capita than the biggest Arab advertising markets (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE).
Why?
Because we need to work harder.
On another note, a new study by PARC reveals that the UAE has now surpassed Saudi Arabia as the region’s biggest advertising market (with $904 million expenditure). More facts from this study soon!
Stay tuned.
June 19th, 2006
