What the price of oil means for radio advertising

“Peak auto, it turns out, precedes peak oil.” So begins a provocative essay arguing that the recent, prolonged slump in car sales in the U.S. is not cyclical, but the beginning of a long decline. Leo J. Shapiro, Erik Shapiro, and Steve Yahn, writing in Editor and Publisher, August 9, say their survey shows that car owners are holding onto their cars twice as long as they did a generation ago, and with gas prices steadily rising, they’re also driving less. What are the implications for advertising?

With bicycle sales and walking paths on the increase, ridership on public transit growing (finally), and long-promised telecommuting approaching significance, “radio advertising will decline in effectiveness since people will be spending less time in their cars listening to the radio,” say S, S & Y. Newspaper auto ad sales people need to start calling on motorcyle and scooter dealerships.

Then there’s the new campaign introducing Daimler’s “Smart Car.” A two-page spread in Rolling Stone June 28 is mostly blank except for a picture of the car and a Web address. The authors call the URL “a doorway on the page into a wealth of information that would never easily fit — or possibly properly noticed — on the pages of the print ad.”

So that’s the case for a brief revival in newspaper advertising. At least it saves ink…Now if only someone would revive the CueCat!