Modern classified advertising in the world.

Abstract

The article examines the market of modern classified advertising: history and trends of its development, types of classified advertising, examples of the use of classified advertising in the media, etc.

Keywords: 

advertising, classified advertising, classified, mass media, newspapers, internet, mobile advertising. 

One of the most important factors in the existence of the foundation of the economy - small and medium-sized businesses - is classified advertising ( classifieds) - small, thematically combined ads. They allow many entrepreneurs to start a business from scratch - to invest very small amounts in advertising. As companies “mature”, they buy out more and more advertising volumes, switch to large formats, too expensive types. The classified advertising remains a “business incubator”, pouring new and new young “blood” into the economy, simultaneously serving the non-business private sector “buy-sell-exchange”. At the same time, classified advertising acts as an indicator of the state of the national economy. If it thrives, then the classified sections are filled with ads. If a crisis occurs, then the total number of advertisers in the mass media (mass media) immediately decreases, and at the same time, the mass of ads increases in the sections "I will help to repay the loan", "Looking for a job" etc.

Classified advertising works not only for business but also for the media themselves. Thus, local city newspapers receive more than 30% of the income from the placement of classified ads. That is, small announcements do a great job both for the development of the entire business and for ensuring the financial independence of the media.

But all this happens in developed countries, where advertising traditions have not been interrupted for decades, where knowledge, technology, experience with classifieds has not been lost... Unfortunately, in Russia, a lot has to be done anew. This includes re-creating the classified advertising industry - as mentioned above, an integral part of the foundation of the economy. And there were many problems along the way. Actually, the domestic advertising market is already more than 20 years old, and classified advertising is developed, perhaps only in the segment of advertising newspapers. In Russia today, no one even counts the income received from this type of advertising. They are so small. The fact is that with all its external simplicity, classified advertising is a rather complex set of various advertising technologies. When creating it, it is necessary to take into account the features of advertising media, and the specifics of headings, as well as content, design, pricing. In case of an error in the formation of even one link, classified advertising turns into an ordinary dump of ads,

The main reason that this means of market promotion has not received sufficient development in our country lies precisely in the fact that the specialists of the majority of Russian media simply do not know how to work with classified advertising, with the corresponding categories of advertisers - they have not learned. And it's hard to scold them for that. It is very difficult for a layperson to develop an advertising model, a policy, the product itself, and organize its sales-oriented towards the modern domestic market. Qualified personnel in this area simply have nowhere to come from. Neither the traditional higher school nor the new business institutes have graduated them either.

Classified ads today:

So, classified advertising is messages of a commercial or informational nature, grouped together according to common characteristic features and indicated by a special index (heading-heading). In English, such advertising is called classified advertising (or simply - classified, classifieds ). In Russian it is sometimes also referred to as "rubricated", sometimes - as "classified". C today we can say that the language back to the greatest extent established the term "a classified," so in the future is what we will use.

All print advertising as a whole can be divided into two types: modular (occupying a fairly large area and having a set of visual and text elements) and classified. Ads of the first type are aimed at attracting the attention of consumers, at encouraging them to buy. The ads of the second type are not intrusive, the consumer is looking for them himself in order to buy a product in which he has already formed a need. The easiest way to find such ads is in the sections of classified ads, where all messages are arranged in a special order that makes it easier to find the information you need.

Depending on the type of media, there may be different types of classified advertising. Moreover, in each of the carriers, its effectiveness will be different. Today the carriers of classified advertising are traditional press, the Internet, television, mobile advertising.

The essence of classified advertising is largely related to the history of the development of both advertising and the surrounding world. For nearly three centuries, classified advertising has lived exclusively in the press. However, with the advent of the Internet, the situation has changed.

Paper age:

The prototypes of modern classified advertising were ancient messages about business services, public notices, auctions, or items for sale. Their people passed on to each other both by means of oral and written words.

Before the printed word, when education was the privilege of a few haves, advertising was oral. In order to convey their message to people, traders, artisans, and special heralds had to lean on the vocal cords, and also move from place to place. In those distant times, the meaning was given to symbols and hand-drawn signs. They were a popular form of advertising in an era when reading and writing skills were not available to the average citizen. The drawings were intended to identify the type of business with familiar shapes or emblems that suggested a specific business. According to them, the public determined what a particular shop was selling, one or another traveling merchant.

The first written notices were found on papyri of Egyptians and ancient Greeks promising a reward for the return of fugitive slaves. They came out under the heading "Wanted."

The first advertisements under the heading "Required" date from the 10th century. BC.

In the fifteenth century. AD with the advent of printing, classified advertising received a new impetus in development. Roman book publishers supplied advertisements with prices and print runs. In 1498, the Venetian typographer and scholar Ald Manucius published a catalog of fifteen printed books, which contained a detailed description of them. In 1500, a catalog of already two hundred books was published in Memmingham, Germany.

The first known newspaper advertisement, now in the British Museum, appeared in a German newsgroup in 1591. It was an advertisement for the sale of a book.

In the ones that appeared in the XVII century. In newspapers, advertisements for "Requirements" were collected together in sections under general headings. It was these first newspaper reports that replaced the city's herald and made it possible to quickly and easily communicate between merchants and buyers.

At first, the ads were published on the front pages of newspapers as small articles. These were messages about imported goods delivered to the port, about new goods in the store, about finding and hiring workers. There are also new headings that make it easier for buyers and sellers to navigate the ever-increasing flow of trade information: "Buy-Sell", "Jobs", "Real estate", "vehicles", etc.

From 1625 advertisements began to appear in England. In 1682, the London City Mercury newspaper published a list of "goods for sale" which included items such as charcoal, masks, leather, painted walking sticks, and feathers. Significantly, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, John Houghton, was the first to advocate the idea that a newspaper has other functions besides just printing current news.

In 1704, the Boston News-Letter appeared in the American Boston, which was then rivaling Philadelphia for the right to be called the largest city in the United States. In its first issue, the following message was published:

 “This newspaper is published once a week, and everyone who has houses, land, buildings, farms, ships, boats, goods for sale or for hire, as well as escaped servants, stolen or lost things, can publish a message about it for a very a reasonable price of 12 pence and five shillings. "

In 1789, the Independent Gazette in New York published 34 classified ads in its issue. Further, the demand for small ads grew as the power of newspapers was realized.

In 1839, the American newspaper New York Sun decided to group all the little Wanted ads together. This is how the first American section of classified advertising was born, which further only increased in volume.

In Russia in the XVIII century. two newspapers were printed - "St. Petersburg Vedomosti" and

"Moskovskie Vedomosti". In the "St. Petersburg Vedomosti", published in 1728, the main place in the classifieds section was occupied by the lists of books published by the Academy of Sciences. The editorial office benefited from these messages since the proceeds from the sale of the newspaper did not cover the costs of its publication. Therefore, in the section "For news" under the headings: "Sales", "Contracts", "Leaving" - commercial announcements were also printed. There were more and more of them, and in the end, the section was separated into a special supplement - "supplement". It published notices about bankruptcies, about the collection of bills by creditors, about the forced sale of estates and property from the auction.

By the middle of the XVIII century. the amount of space occupied by advertisements in St. Petersburg Vedomosti was equal to that occupied by editorial messages. Classified advertising has become a kind of source of information about economic and cultural life, which can be judged, among other things, by the following ads:

"Selling cucumbers of the best pickles and exemplary behavior of the coachman with his wife."

 “From the Vologda provincial government announced, so that those wishing to buy from the auction bargaining descriptions of the landowner Arkady Levashov of the Grazovets district of the village of Zakharov, male sex - 3, female - 3 souls without land, estimated: Nikita Vasilyeva, 70 years old - 10 rubles, his wife Avdotya Grigorievna 50 years old - 5 rubles ... came to the board at the dates set for sale: January 2 and 30 of this year. "

“A foreigner who came here brought with him a trained Spanish dog ... which understands French, German and Dutch; can also read a written or printed letter in these languages, show minutes and hours on all hours; understands arithmetic, calendar, and astronomy; knows all coins, also German and French cards, distinguishes flowers, walks on his forepaws, dances and makes different figures.

The mentioned dog can be seen in Voznesenskaya between Krivoy and Officer streets in a new stone house every day at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Noble persons pay as they please, while others pay 15 kopecks per person. Is there anyone who, having gathered up to 6 persons, wishes to see this dog before noon, he must pay 2 rubles? "

In Moskovskiye Vedomosti, which began to appear in 1756 under the auspices of Moscow University, the design of classified advertising was at first similar to the model of Sankt-Petersburgskiye Vedomosti, but later a detailed bibliographic section was added to it, which had the title "On Russian Books." ... The newspaper also published official government announcements (the so-called "government", often under the heading "Contracts"). Most of all there was private advertising of merchants, employers, doctors, tutors, milliners. Ads like the following were printed:

"The recently arrived Madame Frantuet makes the best and most fashionable ladies' dress and teaches girls, lives on Ilyinka opposite the music shop."

Obviously, the advertising costs paid off. So, the gardener Yakov Andreev for the whole of 1786 gave the following advertisement in the newspaper:

"Near the new stone Nikolsky bridge, house No. 144, the best blossoming flowers in pots are sold: double carnations, hyacinths, tulips ... for a reasonable price ...".

The industrial revolution gave a huge boost to advertising. For several decades, the level of human needs, labor productivity, employment, and entertainment has increased many times over. Classified advertising provided a new type of society with both employers and workers, both sellers and buyers. In the advertising market, which was in increasing demand, competition intensified, prices rose, and new approaches were sought. New headings were introduced: marriage announcements, obituaries ...

The development of newspaper classified advertising went on in full swing throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1993, classified newspaper revenues crossed the $ 11 billion thresholds, nearly three times the 1980 revenues. In the US and Western European press, classified advertising has become the most stable and reliable source of revenue. For example, in the United States, the share of classified advertising revenues by newspapers has become 37% of total advertising revenue. Moreover, for large central newspapers, this figure turned out to be even higher. For example, in 1996, classified ads accounted for 47% of the advertising revenue of the New York Times. Regional newspapers in the UK at this time receive 60% of their income from classified ads.

In Russia, after the coup of 1917 and the collapse of the NEP in 1920. advertising had to disappear from the newspaper pages. However, it did not disappear. In every city in the Soviet Union, there were ad supplements for local newspapers filled with small advertisements. These were mainly ads about the exchange of real estate - apartments and houses. It was forbidden to trade under socialism, but change is welcome.

Only during the period of economic reforms 1980-1990. commercial classified advertising began to return to the press. The pioneers in the new market for small ads were the free newspaper "Extra M" (an adapted version of the Hungarian counterpart - Extra), the free newspaper Center PLUS (tracing copy from the Swiss Geneva Home Information), and the newspaper of free ads "From Ruk to Ruki" (analog of the Italian Secondamano ). In the latter, they began to do business by manually collecting advertisements that were pasted up in entrances, at public transport stops, and lamp posts. Then they called the numbers indicated there and asked if people would like to place an ad in the newspaper for free. The pilot issue "From hand to hand" ("IRR") was released in January 1992. It was distributed by the employees of the "Pronto" publishing holding, distributing it in mailboxes.

The first full issue, already 32-page, was printed two weeks later, and the company was able to put it in kiosks. At first, there weren't enough ads, of course. I had to be cunning: increase the font, retype advertisements from old issues, or even simply invent. It was easiest with the dating section. “A couple of easy phrases like:“ An elderly lady with five children wants to get to know each other ”- and no worry: there is an announcement, there are no calls,” recalls one of the former employees of Pronto. For fun, she even indicated her phone number. However, soon the need for tricks disappeared.

From the spring of 1992, the newspaper began to appear in Moscow twice a week, from October - three times, and from June 1993 - every weekday. In the same year, "Pronto" opened a representative office in St. Petersburg and began to produce "IRR" there. A little later, he covered Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, and Ufa. In 1994, the newspaper began to appear in Belarus, in 1996 - in Kazakhstan and Ukraine ” 1.

The first half of the 1990s. the classified business, like the entire advertising business in general, grew by leaps and bounds. In 1994, two years after the first issue of "Extra M" ("Extra M Media" publishing house) was published, advertisers from early morning lined up at the editorial door and wrote their numbers on their palms to keep order.

Four years later, in 1998, a financial crisis erupted in the country. Advertisers began to run short. In the same "Extra M" advertising revenue at this time fell by half.

After the 1998 crisis, the situation began to improve. In the early 2000s, according to some experts, the revenue from advertising in domestic classifications became comparable to the amount of advertising in glossy magazines.

Globally, in 2003, classified ads accounted for an average of 26% of newspaper revenues in the World Association of Newspapers ( WAN ) survey, ranging from 0.7% in a national newspaper in Southeast Asia to 60% in a Latin American regional newspaper.

Today on the world market of traditional classified advertising there are several quite successful publication models. There are free newspapers with paid advertising, there are paid newspapers with free classified ads (but paid modular), and there are paid newspapers with paid classified ads.

At the beginning of the XXI century. the fate of traditional classified advertising was drastically changed by the powerful development of the Internet.

Internet era:

A new era in the existence of classified advertising began in 1971. At this time, the US Department of Defense's ARPAnet ( Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ) began to combine various satellite and radio networks in order to create a communication system between computers. Initially, the network was supposed to connect only military centers. However, soon the military and scientists of this closed system saw the advantages in the exchange of various information. The network began to grow rapidly. Universities gained access to it, and then ordinary users.

In 1993, the global population of the Network was 3 million people. In 1998, the audience of the World Wide Web has already grown to 13 million, and at the end of 2000, it amounted to 335 million people. The rapid growth in the number of users was facilitated by the fact that computers and modems had fallen in price more than three times by 1996, as well as by the fact that in the future the price of Internet connection and use continued to decline.

The presence of a significant number of specific audiences in need of an appropriate form of presenting information has led to the emergence of electronic printing. Most of its pioneers started out by distributing information by subscription. In 1992, the Chicago Tribune went online. The first on the Web was Raleigh News and Observer in 1994 (11th most visited). The San Francisco Chronicle followed her online. We can say that 1994-1996. became a time of active development of the Internet by the press.

In 1995, the first purely online newspapers appeared, such as the Global Network Navigator and American Reporter. In 1996, the network of sites, originally named CityScape and then renamed Sidewalk, was focused on local markets, that is, in direct competition with the print industry, and with newspapers in the first place. Local news, maps, city entertainment schedules, etc. began to be published on the Internet.

Large Internet corporations spared no expense on investments and provided information services free of charge. Thus, the traditional subscription model of newspapers and magazines was violated in the media market. Some newspapers began to cooperate with Internet companies, providing informational materials and classified advertising bases for publication on the Internet.

The number of online publications grew along with the "population" of the Internet. If at the beginning of 1995 there were about 100 publications on the Internet, then in the middle of 1996 there were already more than 1000. In the same 1996 in the USA, out of 1,700 daily newspapers, about 400 had their applications on the network. Another 200 applications were presented in weekly newspapers. For example, over 30% of subscribers to The Wall Street Journal's electronic application subscribed to the print version at the same time.

Advertisers were quick to rate the effectiveness of online advertising. Already in 1995, more than $ 40 million was spent on advertising on the Internet. And every year this figure grew rapidly. In 1998, advertising turnover reached a level of $ 2 billion. In 1999, it was $ 4.62 billion. In 2009, it amounted to $ 54 billion.

In line with the increased costs of advertising on the Internet, the earnings of advertising distributors have also increased. At the end of the 1990s. the following level has been reached:

technology sites - $ 0.57 per visitor;

search engines - $ 0.42;

news sites - $ 0.41;

entertainment - $ 0.16

By 2000, virtually all media outlets had their own Internet websites. Some editors posted full versions of their edition, others truncated. In 1998-2000 against the background of declining trust and respect for traditional sources of information, the Internet has become a completely independent and practically full-fledged news channel. He also became a new carrier of classified advertising. Today, for example, over 5 million advertisements appear every month on Craigslist alone.

Classified advertising began to "flow" from the traditional press to the Internet. The share of US paper newspapers in the market for advertising vacancies fell from 47% in 1996 to 38% at the end of 2002. The share of online services rose over the same period from 1.5% to 18.1%. In Europe, car advertisements have been at the forefront of moving from the traditional press to the Internet, and job advertisements in the United States.

In 2004, a study by the World Association of Newspapers in Europe found that online media accounted for 3.5% of classified ads. In the United States, this figure is close to 5%.

Interestingly, at the same time, advertisements related to job search and hiring brought about 10% of profits to traditional newspapers and 4.8% - from ads in the "real estate" category. At the same time, in many markets, advertising for vacancies of top managers or highly qualified specialists tended to migrate to the Internet in the first place. The largest advertising losses in this area were noted by newspapers in Scandinavia and the United States.

In 2004, newspapers regained part of their market share (about 4%). At the same time, print revenues grew faster than their online divisions and digital competitors. The reason for this small increase was that the newspapers were able to convince their advertisers of the profitability of continuing the partnership. Publishers argued, reasonably, that dailies are the best way to reach people who are passively looking for jobs: those who are not actively looking for a job change but may be tempted by a good offer. After realizing the value of passive job seekers, advertisers later began to understand the value of passive car buyers as well.

In the first decade of the new century, in a new environment for themselves, all traditional newspapers faced the following situation. On the one hand, the costs of administering and delivering advertising on the Internet are significantly lower than in print media. On the other hand, the prices for advertising in online media average 5-10% of the price level of print media. Consequently, in order to maintain the same publishing income indicators, the volume of online advertising must grow 10-20 times. The threshold value of income preservation is considered to be an increase in the volume of classified advertising by seven to eight times. But at the beginning of the XXI century. the vast majority of newspapers have been unable to recoup their print advertising revenue losses with online sales.

Today it can be stated that by 2010 about 10% of classified advertising had already moved to the Internet. The pace of this ad migration depends on several factors. The first is the behavior of the new audiences of classified ads. Young people are more accustomed to digital technologies and modern gadgets. They are looking primarily on the Internet for ways to sell and buy things, work, entertainment. In 10-15 years, today's youth will constitute the bulk of consumers of media and classified advertising. At the same time, people of older generations continue to use print media, but such consumers are becoming less and less every year.

The second factor is the volume of advertising on the market and the level of Internet penetration. In markets with high Internet usage, the likelihood of advertising moving to this medium is higher.

The third factor is the behavior of the media owners themselves, their activity in promoting digital forms of classified advertising. In markets (local and national), where the level of such activity is still low, classified advertising has remained in print media. Spillover occurs only when someone (publisher or new player) initiates an online ad acquisition.

The fourth factor is the refusal of the audience from intermediaries. In the digital age, buyers and sellers are looking for ways to do without the people who were previously involved in the transaction process. Many buyers are reluctant to pay the required fees to car dealers, realtors or recruiters. A 2004 study by Borrell Associates in the United States found that car dealers who sold their cars on their own rather than through dealerships increased by 20%. Likewise, people don't want to overpay for advertising. Specialized electronic media bring buyers and sellers together for a lower price than newspapers can offer without sacrificing themselves.

Interestingly, private advertisers tend to dispense with newspapers altogether, both print and online. In some markets, however, publishers' Internet access has helped not only cut costs but also open up new revenue streams. Thus, for the Times of India, the Internet has become an important sales channel. The newspaper gained access to a huge audience of Indian immigrants living abroad. The Times of India gave them the opportunity to advertise in the print version of the home newspaper. In the Lebanese newspaper An - Nahar there was a slight increase in revenues after the newspaper began publishing obituaries online. It turned out that the foreign community, which makes up 95% of the site's readers, is interested in posting obituaries about relatives who have died outside the country. Thus, some publishers see the ability to reserve and enter advertisements over the Internet as a more significant achievement than placing the advertisements themselves on the Internet.

The domestic media also reacted to the changes in market strategies. Thus, Pronto (the publisher of Iz Ruk v Ruki) opened an Internet version in 1996 - the IRR.ru website. But “earlier, IRR.ru was just an online version of the newspaper: ads were presented on it, scanned from its pages. Beginning in 2005, Pronto began taking money from companies for posting information on the website. Paid services have appeared - for example, the ability to raise an ad in the list or highlight it in color. In the first quarter of 2006, IRR.ru brought in 3.4 million rubles. Two years later, already 13 times more: its revenue for the first quarter of 2008 amounted to 45 million rubles. At the same time, Pronto started a radical transformation of Job.ru.

Previously, Pronto did not take money from employers for posting vacancies but earned mainly from selling direct advertisements and banners, as well as allocating vacancies so that they were more visible in the general flow of information. Now access to the archive of resumes and posting vacancies for companies are paid.

Today, on Job.ru, you can view only 30 CVs per month for free and publish ten vacancies. For posting vacancies in the amount of up to 50 pieces, about 6 thousand rubles are charged. per month, who wants to publish from 50 to 100 ads must pay 10.3 thousand rubles, and unlimited placement will cost 17.7 thousand rubles.

In fact, Job.ru copied the business model that HeadHunter brought to the Russian market. Its website HH.ru, opened in 2004, brought in revenues of $ 15.5 million in 2007. Prices for HH.ru, by the way, are higher. One regular vacancy is published for 510 rubles, anonymous (when the applicant does not see the name of the company) - for 3 thousand rubles. For using the resume database for 37 days, HeadHunter charges 30.3 thousand rubles, and the annual “subscription” costs 207.5 thousand rubles. ... " 2.

“Another player in the domestic classified advertising market, Delovoy Mir Online, in 2009 launched the free classifieds portal dmir.ru, which is positioned as one of the largest databases of free private and business classifieds in the Russian Internet. More than $ 10 million has been invested in the business related to free classifieds on the Internet (classified projects of Delovoy Mir Online). It is planned that paid services will become the main source of income ” 3.

Considering what is happening today in the classified advertising market, it is important to note that competition exists not only between the traditional press and the Internet but also within the electronic network itself. A whole spectrum of new electronic players with different business objectives and offering different technological solutions has appeared on the "heading field". For example, car dealers or real estate agencies, educational and medical, as well as a variety of trading companies create (including due to dissatisfaction with the work of local newspapers) their own online resources - either individually or through franchises (for example, Ford Dealer Network ), or in cooperation with competitors (for example, local associations of real estate agencies).

Electronic vacancy platforms have become widespread. For example, the independent job site Monster is currently estimated at $ 3 billion. It has 15 million unique users monthly. Back in 2003 alone, Monster generated revenues of $ 420 million.

It should be noted that government agencies are also reconsidering their attitude towards advertising in newspapers. They create their own online services (for example, social employment or health care). Civil services believe that such a solution to the problem allows taxpayers to save money due to the fullness and availability of their sites.

Auction sites (such as eBay with a turnover of 50 billion) are also emerging in the classified advertising market. They allow you to buy or sell anything over the Internet. Many of the deals previously advertised in the newspaper are now being processed in real-time through such auctions.

Some electronics companies simply pirate in the traditional marketplace. Thus, “ Wegener has learned an interesting lesson in the job advertisements market. Local player, nationalevacaturebank website. NL entered the market by copying newspaper ads and posting them on their website. Wegener went to court. It took time, and by the time she won her case in court, vacaturebank. NL ranked second in the market ” 4.

Of course, competitors are taking money from traditional media. For example, in recent years in Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands - the markets with the most active digitalization - the prices of print advertising have fallen by half. Newspapers were simply ousted from the market by dumping prices from new competitors. Interestingly, according to WAN, in 2003, newspapers were earning only $ 7.93 per unique visitor, while purely online companies like Monster or AutoTrader earned $ 17.12.

For four years, from 2005 to 2009, the number of adult users of classified advertising sites in the world has doubled - from 22% of all Internet users to 49%.

Considering the new "electronic" times, we can say that over a decade, the Internet has significantly changed the life of mankind, transformed old activities, and created new ones. We have witnessed the emergence of a new commercial communication channel before our very eyes.

 Classified advertising is over three hundred years old. The little ads are not dead and are not going to die. Together with civilization, along with the entire world of mass media, classified advertising itself has changed. With the advent of new media (television, radio, Internet), classified advertising received a new impetus in development. Methods of production have become different - computer typing has replaced pencil and paper. Categorized advertising has become more efficient, targeted, and convenient for the advertiser. This form of commercial communication is extremely flexible, it can adapt while remaining essentially the same. Its secret is very simple: classified advertising very accurately meets the basic needs and desires of people.

Newspapers and magazines that understand the essence of classified advertising can easily adapt to new conditions, deriving benefits for themselves. And the time for change is not over. For some time, paper newspapers will continue to be the main carrier of traditional classified advertising. But in the future, new electronic technologies, only digital television and mobile services that are developing today, will undoubtedly bring even more new adjustments to the life of classified advertising. Just as small and medium-sized businesses are impossible without classified advertising, so a full life of the media is impossible without it.