BANFF – While the economic downturn has left Canada’s over-the-air broadcasters complaining about their very survival, it has accelerated the move to Internet advertising and the use of social media networks in promoting products and brands, according to Syncapse president and CEO Michael Scissons.
At a NextMedia session in which he was interviewed by Ideon VP Nadar Elm, Scissions explained that as a company’s ad budget has fallen from $4 million or $5 million to $1 million or $750,000, brands have been forced to look to the digital world where promotional campaign can be cheaper than on traditional TV.
“As dollars become tighter, it makes clients search for more and more effective ways to use their money,” Scissons added in an interview with Cartt.ca. “There were huge budgets before but now that firms have significantly less money (to use on a campaign), advertisers have started to ask hard questions. It’s leading to a rapid change in the media landscape and a real rapid change in how we’re buying media. They are beginning to look to companies like ours.”
Syncapse, a company of 65 employees with offices in Toronto, New York and London, UK, is a digital technology agency that helps companies tap into and monetize digital and social media channels.
Companies are beginning to ask is it worth it to spend, say, $500,000 on TV ads, if the overall budget is now only a million, noted Scissions. “The production costs are significantly lower on social media and ultimately – in my view – drive more sales,” he added.
In the good times, companies with big ad budgets used to drag their heels on trying new advertising outlets, instead preferring to just pump money into traditional TV ads. “They used to do a lot of what they had done the year before,” he said, “but with the recession, the last time is no longer possible.”
Companies are being forced to look at options, not necessarily because they want to, but because they have to, Scissions pointed out. “Change is being forced as a result of financial change.”
– Norma Reveler
