Neil Heller, who owns and operated Peoria advertising mailer Local Values, has seen "extreme apprehension" from businesses thinking of traditional advertising.
The culprit? Slimmer payrolls after COVID-19.
But the ad business has also seen a continued shift to digital platforms, coupled with COVID-19'sseismic shifts tothe business world. That's made businesses rethink their approaches to advertising, according to AnnJohnston, president of Central States Media, a Peoria-based advertising firmand Christopher Marsh, an instructor of advertising at Bradley University.
Heller, who has owned and operated Local Values for the past 32 years, said when staffing shortages limit a business'sability to serve its current customers, they're often leery of trying to bring new ones in with advertising.
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Many small businesses "couldn't handle their existing volume because they didn't have the staffing to properly run their businesses," Heller said.
Parker Gibbs, an advertising representative for Gannett, said the transition to digital advertising is now happening as part of a necessity "to maintain or grow your market share in the areas your business competes."
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Locally, Marsh said big spending increases are coming to the advertising market as Illinois political elections begin with the June 28 primary. Advertising spending is expected to jump 28% when political campaign season arrives.
According to public Federal Communications Commission filings for gubernatorial campaigns, 30-secondadvertising timeslots on WMBD-TV vary based on what program is playing. Candidates like Gov. JBPritzker, Jesse Sullivan and Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin have bought timeslots.
During "Wheel of Fortune," a 30-second ad will run about $1,000. An ad during "60 Minutes" runs $1,500, while "The Price Is Right" will cost $350. A spot during local news will runbetween $450-$500.
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At WEEK-TV, a 30-second spot during "Good Morning America" ran for $125, according to the FCC filings. An ad during the NBC "Today" show runs $350. A commercial on WEEK's 6 p.m. news costs $700. A spot during "The Bachelor" is $450.
Heller said the influxof digital advertising, coupled with rising costs for things like paper, postage and labor, hasmade traditional advertising outlets like his take a hit. He said it is cheaper to advertise with him now than it was 30 years ago.
When Heller started Local Values, which sends out a monthly advertisingcoupon booklet to roughly 100,000 Peoria-area homes, it would cost businesses 3-6 cents per home to advertise. Now he says that figure is roughly 1.5-3.5 cents per home.
Postage rates used to cost Heller just under 9 cents per home 30 years ago. Now they cost him over 17 cents per home, he said.
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Digital advertising for newspapers has continued to spike over recent years as well. According to research from Pew, the share of revenue coming from digital ads for newspapers rather than print spiked to 39% in 2020. That is up from 17% in 2011.
Digital ads vary tremendously in price based on platform advertisedon, whether it be social media likeFacebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat orTik Tok. There's also deployment of targeted emails, ads on streaming services, according to Gibbs.
"The cost for each campaign is really based upon their goals, how many people they'd like to reach, the frequency at which they'd like to reach their audience, the level of competition for that industry in that particular area and a few other factors," Gibbs said.
In the United States, the money spent on advertising dollars fell 10% to $107 billion in 2020 when the pandemic struck, according to a study by the World Economic Forum. Forbes is projecting that marketing will only get tougher in 2022 as platforms continue to change and attention spans shorten. However, the ad spending market is expected to grow to $865 billion by 2024 across the globe.
