We are told that the process of advertising media selection has become a crafty exercise. We are told it is no longer possible to determine, with telescoped rifle accuracy, how to deliver advertising messages to a target audience with a minimum of spillage and at the minimum cost.
They say the reason for this is that large segments of the population, including the Gen X baby busters, the Gen Y echo boomers, are venturing away from television, radio and newspapers, into the Internet, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other forms of social media.
The newspapers especially, we are also told, are a medium in trouble. They cite that in Chicago, for example, there were four large dailies whereas now there are only two, and the circulation of the Chicago Tribune, formerly self-styled as “The World’s Greatest Newspaper,” has declined from 933,858 during its prime to 452,144 early this year.
This happened, they say, even though the metropolitan area’s population has grown by more than 40 percent.
The decrease in circulation of these two former giants in the newspaper industry reflects the impact of the tough USA economy and the increased embrace of free online technology that’s changing reader habits and publishers’ business models. However, concrete indicators show that the funeral rites over the impending death of newspapers are not going to happen in Japan. Not in the visible horizon anyway. What may be true in the USA and elsewhere in the world is far from true in Japan.
Credible advertising and information medium
In a survey conducted immediately after the earthquake disaster, newspapers were ranked first (86.2 percent) as the most reliable source of information, followed by NHK (85 percent), the commercial TV Station (70.8 percent), portal websites (59.2), radio (55.2), government reports (54.2) and social media (29.9). The survey showed that in terms of advertising credibility by medium, newspaper advertisements ranked first with 32.7 percent, TV commercials with 32.5 percent, Internet ads and e-mail with 8.1 percent and radio ads with 0.5 percent.
In the US, the rankings are different. First is the military with 90.5 percent, second are hospitals with 79.5 percent, third is the church with 73.7 percent, fourth is the police and prosecutor’s office at 73.5 percent, and fifth are schools at 67.1 percent.
Largest circulation in the world
And that is not all. The three largest-circulated newspapers in the world today are all published in Japan, namely, the Yomiuri Shimbun with a daily net paid circulation of 10,020,584 (13.5 million daily including the evening edition); the Asahi Shimbun with 7,903,473; the Mainichi Shimbun with 3,509,021; and the Nikkei with 3,015,485. These figures are audited, net paid copies as of October 2011.
Compare these data with the present circulation of the largest newspapers in the First World, namely, the Wall Street Journal with 2,024,000; USA Today with 1,900,000; The New York Times with 928,000.
There are other statistics that should open the eyes of our Ad Congress game changers, to show that newspapers remain to be the most effective advertising medium in Japan. The Yomiuri Shimbun has 2.5 readers per copy. Its home delivery is 99 percent. That means for every 100 sold copies, 99 copies are delivered to the home. The reason newspapers are read by so many people in Japan is because of the highly established door-to-door delivery system out there. It seems the Japanese people read their newspapers first thing in the morning, before they do their 10-minute “undousuru,” or exercise.
Newspapers penetrate all genders and age groups
The cost of a one full page B&W ad in the Yomiuri Shimbun is 47,910,000 yen but with over 10,020,000 million net paid circulation, the cost per 1,000 is only $59.60. Compare this with the Wall Street Journal which costs $107.20 per 1,000, based on $216,900 per B&W full page ad with 2,024,000 circulation.
Prestigious advertisers
When an advertiser is able to obtain ad space in the Yomiuri Shimbun, that advertiser is presumed to be as prestigious as the Yomiuri Group itself. Here are some of the stable advertisers of Yomiuri: Air Canada, Air France, Cathay Pacific, Alfa Romeo, Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz and Volvo, Bally, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hernes.
Newspapers online
The leading newspapers have now developed web capability both in English and in Japanese. English-language versions of papers such as Asahi Shimbun, Chubu Weekly Chunichi Shimbun (Nagoya) and 28 other papers ranging from the national to the local are all available online. Additionally, the Nippon Television network, a leading commercial TV organization, maintains its own website, as does a site associated with the Nikkei stock market. A simple web search, using intuitive categories, reveals a rich world of electronic media. The effectiveness of this new form of news dissemination remains to be proven, but it is safe to assume that over the next few years, the entire information industry will be transformed.
Yomiuri Online (YOL) delivers real-time news 24 hours a day, to a wide range of audience of diverse backgrounds.
The Yomiuri Group
Perhaps one reason why the Yomiuri Shimbun is well read and has a huge following is because it maintains 60 news reporters in 31 branch bureaus in the USA, Europe, UK, Africa, Bangkok and Manila, to sustain the high quality of its reporting. The Yomiuri also has diverse business interests that include the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra and the famous baseball national team, Yomiuri Giants. The organization holds occasional art festivals such as the Renoir Exhibition held in 2010.
(The author speaks Nippongo and a decade ago he became immersed in a study of Japanese newspapers. He has traveled to Japan more than 30 times.)