Photo: Dr. Gereon Friederes is Managing Director of Marketmind, the market research and brand consulting specialist.

"Developing a sense of that is the big challenge." Advertising spending increased in 2014 and is set to rise again this year. Is that not surprising given the sluggish economy? GEREON FRIEDERES: Competitive pressure has increased in many industries, precisely because of the weak economic situation. You can see that clearly in retail. There is a lot of cut-throat competition in these industries, and in such situations people tend to invest more rather than less in communications. This also explains the higher spending on TV advertising. Another effect is that precisely because of the tense economic situation, many companies are launching new products on the market to stimulate sales. Or even completely change their business model. Both mean an increasing need for communication. It is striking in your study that budgets for individual instruments are being cut, but conversely the number of instruments used is increasing. Obviously, companies don't want to miss out on anything. FRIEDERES: One senses a great deal of uncertainty as to which instruments are the right ones, especially to address the young target group. Is this still achievable at all? FRIEDERES: With TV and print increasingly less so, that leaves the new media. But even there, many have already experienced that they remain below the perception threshold on these channels relative to the investments. And online or SMS marketing still lacks a lot of the experience that you already have with classic channels. A lot is learned here, experience is gained. With a share of 8 percent of total spending, the online share is still quite modest. Why is that? FRIEDERES: The Internet may be limitless, but new media is limited by the resources in marketing departments. One-to-one communication sounds great, but it also means that someone really sits there and communicates with the customer. And that is quite costly in terms of personnel. Although the advantage of direct measurability in online tools is emphasized again and again, many companies do not even use this possibility. Why?

FRIEDERES: Measuring success costs money, especially if it is to be independent and objective. And that's where many companies say to themselves, for the relatively small online budgets, it's not worth it. Behind this, however, is also the fear that many online measures are currently not cost-effective. And you might not want to know certain key figures so precisely. After all, this is also about gaining experience and building up know-how. More companies are using unaddressed direct mail, while fewer are using addressed direct mail. Is this a departure from the motto "class instead of mass"? FRIEDERES: No, not at all. Addressed advertising mail is mainly used by large companies, so if a few take a break, you immediately have a significant drop in results. And the increase in unaddressed flyers is mainly due to the fact that more and more small and medium-sized businesses are discovering this tool for themselves and thus want to increase the frequency of contact with customers and potential customers. However, there is often a lack of well-founded addresses and corresponding CRM tools, leaving only unaddressed mailings. Especially since the entry barriers for classic advertising via TV or print ads are very high for SMEs. How will the advertising market develop this year? FRIEDERES: Online media will continue to grow, and dialog marketing will also gain in importance. The company's own homepage remains an important tool, especially since development is certainly not over here and new forms of advertising and ways of addressing customers will come. It is remarkable that this does not result in losses for classic media. This will continue, because older target groups in particular want to be addressed via traditional advertising and print products. And when it comes to cost-benefit comparisons, classic advertising and dialog marketing print are unbeatable. The challenge for marketing managers will be to develop know-how and also a feeling for which messages should be played via which channels. Consumers will have to be addressed and accompanied along the various stages of the buying process via different media, i.e. different instruments will have to be strung together as if on a chain. Finding the right combinations here will be the challenge of the coming years. 

Source: Austrian Post Dialog Marketing Report 2015