In January, MDC Partners acquired our company, making us the newest member to their family of agencies MDC Partners Picks Up RJ Palmer. This is a terrific opportunity for RJ Palmer to tap into MDC's resources and capabilities with an eye toward offering our clients additional cutting edge media solutions. Likewise, partnering with RJ Palmer offers MDC agencies the chance to leverage our deep research capabilities, our innovative media planning process and our unsurpassed media buying acumen.   RJP is meeting with many of these new partner agencies and expects great things going forward.  
 

Our other big news was the hiring of our first ever CMO, Chris Boak who has come on board to communicate RJP's commitment to superior client service Palmer Names Cheil's Boak CMO.

As a reminder, RJP is in the marketplace every day.  For more about our activity, follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. 

MDC's NYC Offices. Home of their state of the art Innovations Centre.

MARKETPLACE -

Broadcast - As we finish up 1Q scatter, the marketplace was soft, as predicted.  The two primary reasons for this included the shift of scatter funds into the 2012 upfront and the economy.   But as 2Q takes shape, we don't anticipate quite the same softness.  Historically, 2Q is always better sold and more expensive, and this year the networks are closer to their 2Q budget goals.  A greater percentage of advertisers did exercise their options and cutback funds in 2Q, the most notable being GM and P&G.  So it remains to be seen where that money will re-surface, if at all.  But let me assure you that we will find opportunities for our clients.

Cable - 1Q was pretty soft across the cable field, from low to top tier networks with just a few exceptions.  RJP was able to write business at flat or below upfront levels for many of our cable deals, including networks we didn't write at the time of the upfront. 

Local - Like national, 1Q right now is open with most sellers willing to negotiate (the exception is states with March primary dates).  2Q should get tighter with season finales, mid-season specials and the hype surrounding programs ending their series runs, i.e. House (5/21) and Desperate Housewives (5/13). Political issue advertising is coming in waves but will increase, especially if there is still no single Republican candidate leading the pack consistently.  As a reminder, for the political protection period (45 day window before any primaries, 60 days before the general election in November), all stations are required to offer the lowest unit rate (LUR) to all federal candidates.  This means inventory will be extremely tight, especially as we get into the 3rd quarter, when the Republican candidate is revealed and Olympics coverage begins.

Digital - Advertisers are being cautious, either spending their digital budgets early or holding off and waiting to get their money down at the last moment. The question with digital budgets isn't about spending because there's plenty of it taking place.  It's more about, "to what degree".  There's no Fair Use issues to contend with in digital, leaving those playing fields wide open for politicians to keep honing in on their targets.   Political campaigns are taking a hyper-local approach, targeting down to the neighborhood and household level to sway potential voters, so overall inventory isn't really impacted for other advertisers.

Print - In one of our featured articles below, Jon Nagle, VP, Associate Media Director reports on some news for print. 

Best,

PK  

pknobloch@rjpalmer.com

RJP attended the 2012 CES here in New York City and, Director, Interactive Media, James O'Neill had this to say:

Technology has become a much more pervasive segment in our lives than ever before.  It cannot be said that consumers are "not tech savvy" when they carry super computers around in their pockets.  iPhone users would rather give up their toothbrushes than their mobile device.  If 2011 was the year of the tablets, 2012 is the year of connectivity.  No longer will consumers be complacent about a television, mobile phone and digital camera that are incapable of speaking to each other.  We want our media and content to be free to flow to wherever we want it - DVRs that can play on our mobile devices and pictures that stream wirelessly to our flat screens.  That time is now; with every manufacturer figuring out how to allow even innocuous appliances speak to each other and the consumer.  Our job as marketers is to take advantage of the new access points with our consumers and tell the brand's story in relevant and meaningful ways.  This may be through their car's embedded Spotify or via the mobile alert from the dryer saying the clothes are done.