by Michelle C

Created on: September 22, 2008   Last Updated: October 08, 2008

As purse strings tighten to breaking point in a reaction to the global credit crunch, the bell is tolling for mass saturation advertising. Even those urbane establishments, (you know who you are; McDonalds, Nike et al) who still feel invincible in the face of the growing economic crisis should take heed and migrate to the safer advertising space that is 'niche' offline marketing.

The crux of this methodology is cutting straight to the chase. Blasting your message directly at those most in need of or covetous of your commercial offerings and above all those most in a position to have, in the words of the great Gerry Maguire, 'the quan' to pay for it. In tandem with this goes the invaluable skill of dealing with the media vendors, knowing how the process of negotiating price, size, duration, and location of the ads within the various forms of media is best manipulated, leaving you with the ultimate bargain on maximum exposure to the right clientele.

Firstly, as I've already said, the paramount considertion ought to be your target audience. Now if you are for example, a nightclub promoter trying to get word of the end of season party of the century out to your target audience of twenty something, spring vacationers then dragging a banner through the air on a shuddering propeller plane over the sunbathing spot du jour is the way to go, rather than putting a quarter page advert in the local paper. Whilst some of them might clap eyes on it while absentmindedly flicking through the pages, most of your returns will come from the first method I mentioned and you will merely have bored, perplexed or inconvenienced the newspaper's habitual readers by presenting them yet another advert for something they don't want or need to thumb through, not to mention wasted a large wad of cash. So, Capish on the niche? Good. Lets move on.

Most countries have regulatory bodies, which monitor circulation figures for print and broadcast media concerns. These watch dog bodies disseminate information regarding sales of legitimate publications and ratings of tv and radio programming, specifying which demographic they are accessed by. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Imagine you want to advertise your company's specialist wedding cake service. Are you going to advertise in Horse and Hound, an equine enthusiasts' periodical that reaches 200,000 people quarterly in the British countryside or Bridezilla Journal that reaches 100,000 would be wives annually? Sure, some of the horse

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