Centrl is the first LBSN with Navteq’s LocationPoint advertising platform/The rise of ‘right-place,right-time,right-person’ advertising

Advertising spend in broadcast media is on the decline:

* With the rise of on-demand world, push/broadcast advertising model is no longer effective.

* In October, the four biggest broadcast networks reported declines in audiences between the ages of 18 and 49.

* Advertising Age, in a study on social networking and its impact on television, found that 25% of users of social networking sites like Facebook indicated they were spending less time watching TV because of the time they were spending online.

So this means online advertising spend is exploding? Not really:

* TechCrunch indicates that in the third quarter, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL collectively eked out only a 0.6% increase in online advertising revenue quarter over quarter.

* MediaPost.com reports that, while online ad revenue is up 11% year-to-date, compared to last year’s growth of 26%, growth has all but stalled in 2008. They predict that 2009 will be the first flat year for online ad spending since 2003.

* In a survey of attendees at AdTech New York, private equity firm Halyard Capital found most predicted digital-marketing budgets would be down 10-20% in 2009.

* According to research by Morgan Stanley, the average CPM for a banner ad has dropped from $3 to $1 over the past decade.

* MediaPost predicts that this decline in the rates advertisers are paying will extend to online video advertising in 2009, which is an area that has been enjoying a two year spike in CPMs.

So then where will the ad dollars go? Will they go to social networks that is getting monster page views? No, again:

* Click-through rates on social networking sites are 10 to 100 times lower than the average for banner ads, which were already in the 0.1 percent to 1 percent range.

So then, what is the rising star? It is ‘mobile’ and ‘location-based social networks’:

* 62% of AdTech’s attendees responding to the survey by Halyard cited mobile as the advertising platform that will grow the most in the next two years, as they point that the ’spray and pray’ model no longer works and they need more effective ways to get their messages to the consumers.

At Centrl, we are seeing amazing engagement metrics from our users with the location-based ads we are serving through our partner Navteq and their LocationPoint location-based advertising service.

You are traveling to New York? Download Centrl for free to your phone, see where your friends are, pick some restaurants to go to through Centrl’s layers and while you are at it, click on these green icons and get 10% off your hotel stay. The advertisement becomes a benefit when it is delivered at the right place at the right time.

We are very excited to be the first LBSN to use Navteq’s LocationPoint and we are working with them very closely to improve and optimize every aspect of our system. As the industry and advertisers are gearing up to send their messages to the right people at the right place at the right time, it is very encouraging that these messages are transforming from advertising into ‘benefits’ for our users.