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DO YOU REALLY NEED AN ADVERTISING AGENCY?
Like most things in business and life I guess, we should question the need for everything, especially when there is a lot of money at stake. So it would be fair to also question the need for other high cost areas such as Marketing Managers and Directors, Accountants, Lawyers, Engineers, as like the advertising agency if they can be cut out and we do it ourselves we could conceivably save the company some money. The perception held and argument put forward by a misguided few is that we do not need any of these well trained professionals in an organization, as their function can to some degree be performed by anybody with some idea of what they do and is to be done.
But do we really want to run our companies without these trained professionals, and can we really do as good a job as they can.
There are marketing executives who feel that they can do what their advertising agency does and I daresay that there are advertising executives who say they can do what the client does, both saying it’s not much they do and besides it’s much cheaper to do it themselves. They are both right to some extent as there are some functions that can be performed by the other based on their training and educational background.
Invariably when the client says “ it’s not much they do and besides it’s much cheaper to do it themselves” its because the ad agency and/or personnel interfacing with the client does not have the requisite skills and expertise to do what is required and the client is left to do it themselves.
Experienced Marketing Professionals hire independent advertising agency professionals to plan and implement part or all of their advertising efforts. Agencies depending on their size will typically have strategic and creative expertise, media knowledge, workforce talent, and the ability to negotiate good deals for clients. When an advertiser therefore uses an advertising agency it’s because they believe the agency will be more efficient in creating an individual commercial or a complete campaign. < Full Article>
BUDGETING FOR THE NEW YEAR
Yeah can you believe it its 2006 already! Car loan payments to make, school fees to pay and a whole tonne load of expenses. Its time to get out that pen and paper and do that budget again. The success of it however lies in your ability to follow through with what is written down. Oftentimes we believe that our solution is more money but that is not always the case. Better money management is the best way of ensuring that you will have financial security for the year and further future.
One of the most important things in budgeting is making sure that you do not spend more than you have. To make certain that you are in fact financially healthy you need to set your budget whereby you end up spending less than you actually make. By doing this you are able to increase your savings, make investments and reduce debts.
There is an international rule on saving that actually works and one you should abide by. It tells us that we should save no less than 10 per cent of our income. Make a habit of putting this money aside into a money market account or fund or CD or any other investment instrument. By doing this you are investing in yourself and receiving a higher interest rate than if it had been placed in an ordinary deposit account.
Another important element of budgeting is creating an emergency fund. This fund is created in case of any unforeseen circumstance such as job loss, car repairs or medical expenses. This should be equivalent to 3 months worth of expenses and placed in a high interest rate yet easily accessible account.
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Synergyzing Market
and Media Research
A clear lack of regular robust information on media habits and precise psychographic information has led Hope Enterprises Ltd. to develop a division on its own to fill this gap. Media Targeting Plus the flagship of the Hope Syndicated Services Division is a marketing information system designed to assist in planning successful marketing strategies. As the name suggests it is more than what an all media research gives. It fuses media and market research into one single database.
This database is able to give information on purchasing influencers, media habits, lifestyles and attitudes. This harmonization provides useful information to media houses and advertisers helping them to target their niche market in a way never before done in Jamaica.
Hope Enterprises has for over 20 years been providing reliable information on all market and social research needs for the Caribbean people. With their experience and expertise Media Targeting Plus a product of theirs is undoubtedly going to provide high quality targeted research and evaluation services.
The technology that is used by the field researcher at MTP in the interviewing process eliminates the paper and pencil scenario and increases the interviewing accuracy level and reduces data entry time. The use of the PDA shortens the data entry process and eliminates the issue of omitting questions. In essence it raises the interviewing level.
Media Targeting Plus will provide a unique tool to help media houses, marketers and ad agencies to plan effectively. By answering questions as to who the core audience is, how they think, what drives their purchasing behaviour and the dynamics of a particular category the data base is able to give in depth information beyond mere demographics and guide strategies towards the target market.
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Spending advertising money wisely
In the last month (December) advertisers spent over J$900million on mainstream advertising. That’s equivalent to purchasing 100 top-of-the-line H1 Hummers. Not the little Hummer…the BIG Hummer. If you laid that much money in thousand dollar bills end to end it would stretch across the entire length of Jamaica twice. That’s a lot of money.
Our advertising industry is easily worth more than US$160million per year. It is essentially the life-blood of our nation’s communication system. It’s why we are able to turn on a radio and get the latest news, pick up a newspaper and read the comics, or switch the channel to watch our favourite comedy. If nobody advertised, then almost every newspaper, television station and radio station would be forced to close down. The advertising dollar keeps Jamaicans "in-the-know". Not just about products and services, but also about world events, regional developments and local activities. So the advertising dollar is vital to our whole way of life.
Having spent that money, do the advertisers know for certain what they got? Do they know for certain whether the advertising reached the intended target consumer? Does the advertiser know if their objectives were met? Did they actually set objectives?
Advertising is an investment and should be treated as such. When we are investing our own money, we assess the risk, search for the best rates, ask professionals and hunt around for the most secure institutions. We essentially move mountains to ensure we’ll reap the greatest benefits from the investment we choose. Some advertisers do invest the time and effort needed to assess information but it’s surprising how many others simply go with a "gut feeling" and pay scant attention to useful information that’s available. The popular comedian Jeff Foxworthy once said "My whole career can be summed up with ‘Ignorance is bliss’. When you do not know better, you don’t really worry about failing." Thankfully he was joking when he said it, but too often advertisers operate under that very principle: ignorance is bliss.
Information is what we should use to drive all our advertising activity. Why? Because if we don’t base our decisions on sound information, we’ll be operating blindly and more often than not walk headfirst into the proverbial brick wall.
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JAMAICA’S ECONOMY:
YEAR IN REVIEW
The prospect of strong economic performance for the year 2005 was dampened by severe weather conditions which affected Jamaica and the Atlantic Basin during June – November. Climatologists noted 2005 as a record year for storms as 26 named storms affected the Atlantic Basin. Jamaica suffered direct hits from two hurricanes, Dennis and Emily and a tropical storm, Wilma, which equally caused significant damages. These weather conditions cumulatively caused direct damages exceeding $6billion dollars and jeopardized performance in the Tourism and Agriculture sectors. Inflation for calendar year to date (December 2004-November 2005) also reflected the adverse impact of weather conditions and rising oil prices. As the year came to an end higher than projected domestic inflation in the first and second quarters of the year precipitated inflationary expectatations. In addition to this reduced foreign exchange receipts from tourism threatened stability in the foreign exchange market. In the first and second quarter of 2005 the Bank of Jamaica, encouraged by favorable economic conditions lowered interest rates on its open market operations on three occasions. For the remaining months of the calendar year interest rates on all tenors remained fixed at rates below their lowest level since September 2002.
Production
At the start of 2005 the Minister of Finance projected that the economy would grow by 3.6 per cent. However, by early November these figures were revised downwards at 1.5 per cent due to the adverse impact of hurricanes on the economy. The latest available figures reveal that for the period January – September 2005 the economy was estimated to have grown by 1.0 per cent. This reflected growth in the Services sector of 1.0 per cent and the Goods- producing sector of 0.7 per cent. The main drivers of growth in the Goods-producing sector were the Construction and Mining sectors which grew by 9.1 per cent and 5.1 per cent respectively. The construction sector benefited form increased reconstruction activities associated with Hurricane Ivan, increased capital expenditure on the Northern Coastal Highway project and capital spent on hotel construction. Manufacturing and Other Manufacturing grew marginally by 0.1 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively. For the Manufacturing sector the category Food, Beverage & Tobacco declined by 0.2 percent. Within the other manufacturing component cement production increased by 13.9 percent to 653,778 tonnes. Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing declined by 15.3 per cent and reflected reduction in Domestic and Export crops (Table 1).
Increased output was recorded for Livestock which increased by 4.8 per cent. Overall, output for the agriculture sector was affected by 1) drought conditions which caused bush fires during January –April, 2) hurricanes Dennis and Emily and Tropical storm Wilma caused direct losses amounting to more than $560 million dollars.
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