BY PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA – Traditional media – newspapers, radio and television – may be credible than digital media but more and more advertisers are now making better use of social media to promote business.
“Traditional media is more trusted than digital media because anybody can put anything on digital media, and that your credibility is what you are selling to your audience,” said Aristoteles Estrella.
Estrella, an advertising consultant, was among the speakers at the Philippine Press Institute’s 18th National Press Conference and 2014 Annual Membership Meeting at Traders Hotel Manila yesterday.
In an interview with Panay News, Estrella said advertisers were starting to feel that digital media were “the way to go” because “they’re not after credibility.”
He stressed, “It’s all about money,” adding that advertisers see the new media as “cheap” and produces immediate results.
So how can the traditional media attract advertisers?
While it is “very, very difficult,” Estrella admitted that the only way for “big” advertisers to continue business with traditional media is to convince them that newspapers, television and radio remain as “viable alternative.”
They should offer advertisers value and relationships and “go beyond selling print space,” he pointed out.
Newspapers, he added, will also survive if they engage in partnerships for corporate social responsibility.
As for Mark Cu Unjieng, chief executive officer of Exotech Solutions, merging traditional media with digital media is a solution.
Newspapers should provide “premium” advertising solutions as advertisers nowadays become less interested in “old-fashioned (ad) packages,” Cu Unjieng added.
Cathy Candano, head of Google South East Asia, meanwhile, reminded media companies to find out what their market wants and what they want their market to do.
Candano also encouraged them to “think about readership” and “take care of your readers.”
But Atty. Jesus Dureza, president of the Philippine Press Institute, said he is not convinced that the digital media is killing the print media and other forms of media.
Print media is here to stay, Dureza said.
“Social media cannot compete with the print media in terms of veracity, independence and accuracy,” he stressed/PN
