Dealers Double MP3 Ads, Doubling Apple's Share: Beyen

By Joseph Palenchar On Dec 19 2005 - 8:00am

Retailers more than doubled their advertising of MP3 portables in newspapers during the past year, and Apple was the biggest beneficiary, having doubled its share of dealers' MP3 advertising, Beyen International reported.

Dealers shifted some of their audio advertising away from home theater in a box (HTiB) systems during that time, reflecting the products' declining dollar sales, Beyen also found.

The company, which tracks advertising in newspapers nationwide, found a 110 percent increase in the number of times that MP3 players appeared in retailers' ads between November 2004 through October 2005. The number of ad placements grew to 76,655 during that time. Simultaneously, Apple's various iPod models accounted for 30 percent of the MP3 models appearing in retailer's ads, up from the prior-year's 15.4 percent, Beyen said.

The number of times that HTiB systems appeared in retailers' ads dropped 7.4 percent during the time period, to 55,873.

Beyen, which will change its name to IFR Monitoring in January, also found that Circuit City was the most aggressive advertiser of MP3 portables, accounting for 21.5 percent of all MP3 advertising during November 2004 through October 2005. Circuit was followed closely by Best Buy, with 19.9 percent share. The top five retail advertisers accounted for 72.3 percent of all the MP3 players advertised.

Beyen statistics reflect newspaper advertising in 104 U.S. newspapers in 85 major markets, capturing more than 60 percent of the nation's newspaper readership. The company plans to complement its advertising tracking program with an in-store monitoring program that will quantify individual products' shelf-presence in stores across the U.S. and Canada.

In tracking MP3 advertising, Beyen also found that:

• Apple models accounted for four of the five most frequently advertised models, six of the top 10, and nine of the top 15.

• The 25 most-advertised models accounted for only 16 percent of total MP3 player appearances in ads.

• The top 10 advertised brands included Creative Labs, iRiver, San Disk, Samsung, Sonic Blue, Sony and RCA.

• Brands gaining share of dealers' MP3 advertising included Creative Labs, Samsung and Sony. San Disk posted the greatest percentage-point gain, rising from 0.3 percent during the year-ago period to the No. 4 spot at 7.7 percent.

During the 12-month period ending October 2005, Creative Labs moved from the No. 5 spot in ad share to No. 2 with 15 percent, RCA fell to seventh place from third, iRiver stepped up a notch to third from fourth, Philips dropped to 11th from six, and Samsung moved to fifth from seventh.

At the same time, Apple's dominance grew in retail-level advertising during that period. Its advertising share grew from the 12 percent to 17 percent range in the fourth quarter of 2004 to anywhere from 22.5 percent to 43.9 percent during the 10-month period ending in October 2006. During the first 10 months, Apple's dominance was heaviest in July and August, when it enjoyed a 43.9 percent and 40.2 percent share of retail ad mentions, respectively.

July and August were also the heaviest MP3 advertising months of the 10-month period.