Speaking Sensis

I’d like to officially welcome Yelp to Australia today, a global leader in local ratings and reviews. I encourage everyone to visit www.yelp.com.au and share their experiences of local businesses by posting ratings and reviews.

Why rate and review? Aside from the fact that it’s the fun and easy way to talk about great (and not so great) local businesses, it’s sites like Yelp that are playing a big part in how we Aussies make purchasing decisions these days.

According to the Sensis® Social Media Report, social networkers read an average of six reviews before making a buying decision. So rather than waiting for a review of a business to be published online or in the local paper and then deciding whether or not to give the business a go, we are getting on the front foot and seeking these reviews out for ourselves. Yelp.com.au makes this very easy. 

Yelp first started in San Francisco in 2004 and today’s launch in Australia marks the 13th country it has opened its online doors in. In Q3 2011 the online ratings and reviews company received an average of 61 million visitors a month (up 63 per cent from the same time last year), has generated 22 million reviews on its global network as of September 2011 (an increase of 66 per cent over the same time in 2010) and saw an average of five million unique views a month on its mobile app. With results like these, it’s evident that ratings and reviews are becoming an increasingly important component of consumers’ pre-purchase behaviour.

While I’m personally excited about Yelp’s launch in Australia today, it’s also a big coup for Sensis®’ Yellow Pages®, after announcing our ground-breaking partnership with Yelp back in July. 

Yellow Pages® local business listing data has been integrated into Yelp.com.au (including mobile site and apps), which means our Yellow Pages® advertisers will be able to be found by more potential customers. And in a couple of weeks, Yelp Reviews and Ratings will be displayed on Yellow Pages® Online and Mobile. I’ll tell you more about that shortly. In the meantime, visit www.yelp.com.au to rate and review a local business near you.

Whether you consciously think about it or not, the life of a retailer, online or off, is steeped in behavioural psychology.  As we head towards Christmas, here’s a case study on how to move your customer from buying to owning.

Imagine you are a boutique fashion retailer. Time and again people come in to your store, start their walk around the perimeter, acknowledge your greeting with a strained smile and maybe a “just having a browse” mumble, and then exit without trying any of the clothes.  That’s me – I’m your nightmare. Money to spend, interest in buying, but inert when it comes to engaging with the purchase process.

How is it then that I happily and impulsively spent a few hundred dollars on a dress that I hadn’t imagined owning before I stepped into the store?

Great salespeople are a great experience. 

What got me into the store?
I’m pretty basic – it was a sale sign.  But I wouldn’t have bothered chasing a sale unless the window display was evocative.  Subtle lighting, natural tones, textured faux-stone display materials – the store fit out made me feel like a was entering a place of nature.  And what’s more pleasant than strolling around a place of natural beauty?  It felt special, the clothes were obviously cared for, and the warmth generated by the store rippled through me as I started my perimeter stroll. 

How did the sales assistant engage me? 
Catherine (yes I learnt her name through the exercise) greeted me from a non-encroaching distance. “Anything I was looking for?” “No just browsing.”  But then her genius move – “Can I try this jacket on you?”. And she did.  She effectively was asking a favour of me – and through so doing she won my trust because the jacket was great.  But then, “There’s a dress that would really suit you” – and off she skipped to the other side of the store, presenting the dress for my reaction.  She’d already managed to engage me through the jacket and I knew through this exercise she had expertly appraised my figure and gained my trust.  Most of all, it felt like she was truly interested in me not in making a sale. She had invested herself in the experience.

How did she make the sale?
The dress went on and was great. But then the show began. The other sales assistant tagged teamed as they demonstrated all the features – yes features – of this wonder dress. Tie it this way, tie it that way – multiple looks as a result of this beautifully, cleverly and practically designed dress.  Add a cummerbund and add another layer of versatility. 

Was I thinking price at this point…kind of. But by that stage it was a question of how much I would pay, not whether I would.  By that point I could have justified almost any price because I had moved way beyond ‘buying’ and was already in ‘owning’ land. And did I feel I was being sold to? No. I felt like they were helping me.

So what are the lessons for small business owners and operators?

Make the experience concrete not abstract – asking me if I was looking for something in particular would have been less effective than asking me to try on a jacket.  For online sites, telling me to click for the product catalogue is less effective than telling me to click to view details, availability and pricing for 23 skirts.

Create a consistent experience throughout the process – in this case, the store fit-out was consistent with both the clothes and the warm attitude of the staff.  Don’t set up a consumer campaign that celebrates fun, connection and happiness if you grind your customers down with a bureaucratic, boring and cumbersome purchase experience – you’ll confuse people about your brand integrity and savage your conversion rate.

Consider reciprocation – asking me for a favour was a way of making the relationship two way.  I was then prone to ask the sales assistant a “favour” ie I was more prone to ask for what I wanted – the ‘power balance’ was equalised.  Seems strange given I was the buyer with the purchasing power, but when dealing with an inert shopper like me, it was a great strategy to get me to act.  How can you create a two way relationship with your customers with the aim of making them more comfortable to do business with you?

No doubt retail is a tough gig so in the lead up to the Christmas season I’d encourage you to take a fresh look at the interactions you have with your customers and see whether some behavioural tweaking is in order. It might just make the difference.

News Limited recently announced how it plans to tackle one of the big challenges facing the newspaper industry: how to charge for digital news services. The Australian website will have a paywall established in the next few months which will create a subscriber-only service by blocking digital content to those who have not subscribed to the service.

Whilst a paywall is somewhat particular to content providers, there are lessons for all businesses around why ‘free’ is such a powerful behavioural concept and what to do if you want to introduce a charge for something that was previously available for free.

So let’s start by looking at chocolate.

The persuasive power of ‘free’
In an experiment outlined in Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions”¹, participants were given the choice of two chocolates; high quality Lindt or, the less expensive Hersheys. Through the course of various experiments, the price of each brand was manipulated to see how consumer rationality was affected. In other words, what was the point at which price changed our judgment of what we were willing to experience from our consumption of chocolate. When the Lindt was 15 cents and Hersheys 1 cent, 73% chose Lindt.  Makes sense. We are willing to pay more when we expect to receive a quality experience.

But then life got interesting.  Prices were dropped by 1 cent. Lindt was therefore 14 cents and Hersheys, free.  Suddenly Hersheys gobbled up 69% of the customers, reversing the earlier trend. Was it the one cent price drop? No. It was impact of ‘free’. The majority of participants were now willing to act in spite of the lower level of anticipated pleasure just because the chocolate was free. 

Based on the study, it seems that ‘free’ dramatically impacts our assessment of what we are willing to experience.
Ariely goes on to speculate that the reason we are so swayed by ‘free’ is that there is no downside. In most transactions, we weigh up the pros and cons, rewards and risks, but when something is ‘free’, there is only upside.

This is the behavioural principle of loss aversion, where we are wired to avoid loss more than seek gain.  In the case of chocolates, participants were unwilling to trade Hersheys for Lindt even when they had only to pay one cent for the lower quality brand.  The risk of a less enjoyable experience was still too great. Take away that risk by making Hersheys free, and the game changed.

Introducing a charge for a free service
That’s fine for chocolate, but what does it have to do with a paywall where News Limited are trying to introduce a fee?  After all, it’s a bit like charging for Hersheys when we are used to pigging out for free.  

It shows how difficult a task News Limited have ahead of them because ‘free’ is one of the most persuasive of forces.  So here are some thoughts on how to reverse engineer free in order to transition to a paid service:

Differentiate the product – if a brand wants to charge for something that they have previously given away for free, they need to change the product.  For chocolate, it may mean changing the ingredients or packaging, or emphasising something new about the product that people didn’t know (eg now from sustainably managed cocoa suppliers).  For News Limited, it could mean re-skinning the online experience, introducing new content and/or features, and new marquee journalists.

Reframe the pricing – News Limited customers will be paying between $2.95 and $7.95 instead of zero.  These are small amounts relative to most things, but not relative to free, so News Limited needs to contextualise the price for its customers.  For example, less than a gym membership, less than a zone two train ticket, less than what you spend on lunch per day to get 24/7 access to real-time Australian news.

Introduce decoys – Pricing decoys are a very effective behavioural technique because we assess prices relative to others.  At the moment on News Limited’s subscription page for The Australian are offering a digital pass for $2.95/week, digital plus weekend papers for $4.50 or digital plus Monday-Saturday papers for $7.95.  Here it would have been helpful for them to also offer a ‘decoy’ 7 day print subscription on the same sign up page. Why? It sets a value for the print subscription that makes the print and digital bundles look more attractive. (On The Australian’s offers page which is buried a few clicks in they have moved in this direction but made the mistake of making print look the better deal at $2/week).

Get it over quickly – the behavioural principle of adaptation means we get over bad news more quickly if we are not reminded of it.  News Limited will have to be careful how it treats its customers throughout the sign-up, sign-in and billing process, with the aim to have the pricing recede in the customer’s consciousness. 

Demarcate the process – Anyone who has used iTunes may have noticed that the payment by credit card is confirmed a few days after your purchase. The effect of this is a disconnection of the process (purchasing music) from the pain (payment), which means we are less likely to remember that our downloads have cost us. News Limited should likewise consider how it finalises the payment process with the customer.

Guilt – don’t under estimate how guilt can turn free-loaders into paying customers.  Of course there will always be some people who take without giving, but most of us are susceptible to contra-free loading.  This is our innate desire to work for reward rather than just get rewarded.  Don’t scoff.  A recent move by the Indiana Museum of Art to move to free entry resulted in a 3% increase in paid memberships.
 
The key lesson to take away from this discussion of chocolates and paywalls is this; offering something for ‘free’ changes the game.  It comes with significant behavioural implications that can work well for your business to stimulate volume, but can also change how your product is perceived.  Whilst not impossible to reengineer a free service as paid, it is extremely tricky and therefore should be used with due consideration to your longer term and competitive goals.
  
1. “Predictably Irrational;: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions”, Dan Ariely, HarperCollins; 2008

It’s a fact that consumers don’t always do what you think they’ll do. That’s because they’re people… individuals… not robots. In this new series for Speaking Sensis, Bri Williams talks about Behavioural Economics, or how a real understanding of consumer decision making can benefit your business.

Some days it just seems too hard. You offer deals to your customers that should work but they just don’t fly.  And then other days, for no apparent reason, customers are beating down your door looking to do business.   How on earth can you get into the minds of your customers to find out what’s going on?

Welcome to Behavioural Economics.  An increasingly popular field, used by both UK and US governments to affect policy change and advertising agencies to improve marketing effectiveness, Behavioural Economics nestles in between economics and consumer psychology. The central mantra of Behavioural Economics is that we humans are irrational. Now, before you get outraged and debate the point, research from Behavioural Economics is about our economic irrationality. In other words, the decisions we make don’t always result in the best economic outcome for ourselves. 

That maybe true of others, you’re thinking, but not me!  Well, think about owning a car that you use only occasionally instead of renting one when required; paying for a 2GB data plan when your internet usage is nowhere near that level; driving an extra 10 minutes to get a 4c off a litre of petrol (the equivalent ‘discount’ you could have saved by spending a few dollars less at their supermarket),  saving your bonus pay money (in your mental bank account) to buy something special rather than using it on bills and buying something special later.  All of these simple, almost daily decisions are prime examples of economic irrationality.  

My favourite example is the TV show “Deal or No Deal”.  Seeing the contestants reject diminishing “bank offers” as their odds slip away in the hope of their fortune changing – despite the economic benefit of taking the deal – is both infuriating and hilarious.   But let us not get cocky.  We all are influenced by factors other than pure economics, your customers included.  And therein lies the opportunity.

There are tried and tested techniques in Behavioural Economics that will help you understand consumer irrationality and then use that knowledge to appeal to customers.  Behavioural Economics sheds light on what makes group buying compelling, how to structure sign-ups for marketing, the role of “free” and discounting, how to communicate a price rise, improvements to loyalty programs, what your customer service consultants should be saying…the list is expansive.

Sound good? Well, in the coming series of Speaking Sensis we will be examining these and other business tips from the field of Behavioural Economics, so look out for our next edition coming soon.

The Sensis® Social Media Report backs up the views of social media experts by showing that engagement is critical to social marketing.

One of the most significant findings of the Sensis® Social Media Report is that consumer uptake of social media far outstrips business uptake. This leads to the conclusion that Australian businesses need to do more to ‘follow the audience’.

But, how?

For a long time, the experts have been telling us the secret is engagement: being able to connect with consumers in a relationship that benefits all.

And the Sensis® Social Media Report bears this out.

Overall, Australian social media users seem roughly split on the legitimacy of advertising in social media. About half don’t like it, while the other half either don’t mind or welcome it.

That’s not so bad. But the skies become less sunny when you consider that only 29% of people say they take notice of advertising on social media. And (coincidentally), only 29% say they sometimes click on social media ads.

In other words, while the acceptance of social media advertising isn’t too bad, we’ve got a fair way to go before it becomes really effective.

So does that mean the social media doors are closed for marketers?

Absolutely not!

You see, in the midst of all this advertising apathy, 63% of social media users say they read online reviews and blogs when searching for information about products and services.

And those consumers expect to read an average of six reviews before making a decision.

But that’s not all. Social media users also have a voracious appetite for something extra. 57% want discounts, 45% want give-aways, 41% want invitations to events and 36% want coupons.

In other words, while social media users aren’t reacting to ads, they’re really big on information and incentives.

And that’s where the opportunity lies. There’s value to be had for marketers who try to be useful, rather than try to be snappy.

And that value can be magnified if you can meet people’s needs so well that they openly advocate for you. That’s because, 27% of Internet users have provided online ratings while 24% have posted an online review or blog.

As everyone keeps saying, the potential for social media marketing is huge. But to unlock that value, we need to see consumers as targets for service, not targets for spin.

Okay, have a guess. Which Australian state is first past the post when it comes to social media?

Too easy. With their higher population and access to technology, it’d be NSW and Victoria in a canter.

Right?

Wrong.

In fact the Sensis® Social Media Report has found that our two most populous states sit in the middle when it comes to most measures of social media uptake.

And that there’s one state that stands head and shoulders above the rest… Tasmania.

To show you what I mean, here is a roll call of leading states in the social media stakes.

Most connected: Tasmania
100% of Tasmanians access the Internet. The national average is 94%.

Most social (consumers): Tasmania (by a mile!)
44% of Tasmanian social media users are networking every day compared to a national average of only 30%. However, they average 160 ‘friends, contacts or followers’, which is well under the national average of 217.

Most social (businesses): ACT and Queensland
20% of Queensland and ACT businesses have a social media presence, which is way ahead of the national average of 15%.

Most friendly: Victoria
Victorian social media users have an average of 241 friends or followers each compared to 217 nationally.

Most brand friendly: Tasmania
Tasmania walloped the other states. 39% of Tasmanian social media users follow sites or groups associated with brands, compared to a national average of 20%.

Most bargain friendly: Queensland
16% of Queensland social media users have used group buying sites compared to a national average of 12%.

Most vocal: Tasmania
37% of Tasmanian social media users have written an online review or blog about their views on a product or service. This is way above second placed Northern Territory (28%) and eclipses the national average of 24%. Meanwhile, 67% of Tasmanian social media users have used online reviews or blogs to research product purchases. This is second only to Western Australia on 69%.

I’ve been thinking what might be behind these trends. Is Tassie’s very high uptake of the Internet (100%, as I mentioned before) driving all this social media activity? Or is there a sense of isolation that social media might be remedying? (Interestingly, social media take-up is also relatively strong in NT). Maybe it’s all of the above, but whatever it is, Tasmanians are the savvy social media users to watch!

The Sensis Social Media Report, which was released last week in conjunction with the Australian Interactive Media Indsutry Association, had some interesting things to say about social media trends among older Australians.

HELPING YOU STAY IN TOUCH

It’s no surprise that the uptake of social networks in Australia is heavily weighted to teens and young adults. According to the Sensis Social Media Report (which is available for free download from the Sensis corporate site), 93% of 14 – 29 year olds have used social media at some point compared to only 31% for over 65s.

While uptake maybe relatively low, the reasons why middle aged and senior Australians are using social media make for interesting reading.

Their reasons suggest that social media could have an enormous role to play in enriching the lives of older Australians in the years to come.

Consider this:

• 60% of over 50s use social media to share photos or videos. This is second only to 20 – 29 year olds and well above the 56% for all Australians.
• 18% of over 65s use social media to meet new friends – this proportion is exceeded only by 14 – 29 year olds.
• 14% of over 65s are using social media ‘to find people with the same interests that you have’. That’s bang on the average for all people and well ahead of 20 – 39 year olds and 50 – 64 year olds.

Growing old must be difficult for many Australians. You spend decades building a life, a family and a network of friends; only to find that they slowly ebb away due to an increasing loss of mobility.

I’ve seen this myself over the last few years. Before they made the trip to aged care, I watched my parents gradually become prisoners in their own home. Due to growing immobility, their ability to socialise – something the rest of us take for granted – became more and more difficult; to the point where they only rarely left the house and hardly ever saw their friends.

Social networks bring with them an enormous opportunity to alleviate the loneliness of advancing age. They offer a way to talk, share and even play with family and friends regardless of distance and mobility issues.

Which, in an ageing country like Australia, could become very important in the future.

HELPING YOU SHOP

Of course, many middle aged and senior Australians are as mobile as ever and living very active lives.

Which leads to another interesting observation about the use of social media in Australia.

You see, Australians over the age of fifty are showing a tendency to rely heavily on social media for purchase decisions.

• 17% of over 65s use social media to research holiday destinations or travel offers: the highest percentage for all age groups
• And 17% of 50 – 64 year olds, use social media ‘to research other products or services you might want to buy’. This response shared the top spot with 12 – 19 year olds.

There’s a simple message here. You wouldn’t normally think about over 50s as an audience for social media marketing.

But, given their spending power and propensity to use social media to research purchases, social media could be a significant opportunity for over 50s marketers in the years to come.

NSW Small Business Month is a big a highlight of the year for the Sydney Yellow Pages crew. We work hard to better understand what businesses need from their media services providers in a changing world, so we love having the opportunity to hear first-hand from the hundreds of business owners who attend these events about what’s keeping them up at night on the marketing front.

A lot of the discussions I was privy to during Small Business Month this year centered around the basics: Who’s your audience? Where are they looking?  What kind of tribes and communities are they a part of? How do I communicate and interact with them? How do I set up my website, leverage search engines or other media such as online and mobile directories to get them to buy my products and services? And there were questions about where digital marketing fits in – online, mobile, social…

One of the presenters that Yellow Pages® put forward during Small Business Month was our resident economist and small business analyst, Christena Singh. Christena’s the author of the Sensis® e-business Report which is based on interviews with 1,800 small and medium businesses (up to 199 employees) across Australia. The latest Sensis® e-business Report released on 22 September explored how SMEs use and purchase digital technology. It found that while Australian small businesses are embracing new technology and gaining good results, most don’t have a digital strategy to align activities with the business’ objectives and market plans. And without a plan, small businesses are possibly not getting the best return on their digital investment. 

Of those businesses that did have a digital plan, the report found that most have not integrated all the digital components. It was most likely to include online (80%) and internet (80%) strategies. Mobile and social media strategies were only incorporated in one third of digital plan. For anyone who runs a small business or works with small businesses, this report is a fascinating read and is free to download: http://about.sensis.com.au/small-business/sensis-ebusiness-report/

At Yellow Pages®, we see it as our job to get businesses as many leads as possible via our multi-channel platform – print and digital. When a business takes out a
Yellow Pages® ad, their details can be searched for via major search engines like Google Maps and Bing, as well as www.yellowpages.com.au and www.whitepages.com.au. Online optimisation campaigns are available using our Click Manager product. And we now have links to social media sites Twitter and Facebook through some of our media solutions. The details are also available via our mobile applications and the 1234 voice service (think 1234 sock puppet!). 

We want to make digital marketing easier for businesses by looking at the various options and developing a plan that’s suitable to their business model, industry and perhaps most importantly, their need to maximise their time by optimising all the solutions available. We can also help businesses track the success of their investment through our various measurement programs.

Hopefully the sessions that we led at events like Digital Day cut through some of the noise for small business owners. If you’re in business and you missed the sessions, visit the NSW Small Business Month website or contact Yellow Pages® for advice on a cost effective solution for your business.

Is traditional media bowing before the online juggernaut? Don’t you believe it.

Well, trounce me with a tablet and tell me I’m a technophobe.

In contrast with the armies of ‘gurus’ claiming an increasingly irrelevant traditional media is on its knees begging for sweet mercy from the digerati, out come the following two reports.

In February, The Nielsen Company’s Australian Internet and Technology Report 2009 – 2010  found that “the continued increase in time spent online amongst Internet users has, overall, not been at the expense of other media.”

Nielsen found that, while, time spent online grew by over an hour in 2009, consumption of traditional media (like TV, radio and newspapers) actually grew as well.

Go figure!

In fact, Nielsen’s results over several years suggest that, while Internet users tend to spend less (but still substantial) time consuming traditional media than non Internet users, the actual time they spend with traditional media has remained pretty well flat for quite a few years now.

In other words, while time spent online has risen massively, time spent offline hasn’t fallen in response.

Then in March, way over the other side of the world, KPMG UK reported a similar kind of trend.

Their Media and Entertainment Barometer for March found that while time spent online grew by 74 minutes in the six months to March, traditional media consumption ALSO grew by 33 minutes.

So what?

I can’t help thinking there’s a really simple, but really important, message in this data.

That traditional and digital together is far more powerful than digital alone.

Digital media is a massive part of our lives today and will play an even bigger role in the future.

But it won’t be alone, because people want choice. They want a paper in their hands and on their mobiles. They want TV in their lounge and on their iPad.

And the more choice people get, the more media they consume.

In short, the future is everywhere, not just online.

Maybe we should put an end to these phoney media wars and start realising we’re all in this together.

Because, clearly, that’s what consumers (and advertisers) want.

The last six months of 2009 was a mixed bag for the Australian media market. While a number of media are experiencing real challenges, the sector as a whole showed slight improvement in the December half, with the Internet and TV (particularly pay TV) being the big winners.

So, do you like a good roller coaster? Well, the ad industry has a pearler for you.

According to the December 2009 CEASA Report – the ‘bible’ of revenue in the Australian main media market – the GFC gave the ad industry a not unexpected whacking in 2009. Advertising expenditure (covering newspapers, magazines, directories, TV, radio, online, outdoor and cinema) fell by 8% during 2009 to about $12.6bn.

Ouch.

Mind you, just like all good roller coasters, just when the slippery slope looks like slamming you into the soil, up you go again. The CEASA report pointed to a slight improvement in the December half. And while things still looked weak, they weren’t quite as bad (in most places) as the June half, suggesting a recovery maybe in play.

To reinforce this trend, the latest SMI report, which came out a few days ago, suggested that the media market gathered the upward force of your average space shuttle in the March quarter, with growth of approximately 10% compared to the same time last year. Mind you, the SMI report doesn’t cover the full market in the way CEASA does, so you can’t directly compare the results.

While this is good news for a media sector that did it tough during 2009, the champagne corks aren’t popping everywhere. In fact, when you look under the hood, you find that the results across different sectors of the ad industry are going up and down like a … well, this is a family blog.

So who were the big winners and losers in 2009?

The Ups

Not surprisingly, online was the only major sector to grow in 2009, although it clearly wasn’t a great year by Internet standards. In fact, the industry looked quite weak in the July and September quarters before staging a strong recovery in December.

And, although it still declined by 6% for the year, TV – that other big screen – was also a winner. That’s because TV did a lot better in December (down 2.9%) than June (down 10.6%). This result was heavily supported by pay TV, which grew by 5% for the year.

In fact, TV revenue did so well compared to other the rest of the market that it actually out-muscled newspapers in 2009 to become Australia’s highest earning media sector, possibly for the first time in history.

The Downs

Of course, what goes up must come down … and there’s a few different media that lost big in 2009.

Newspapers were down almost 16% in 2009, although, like TV, they showed a reasonable overall improvement in the December half. But suburban newspapers defied that trend: the 21% decline they experienced in the December half was actually worse than June.

The other big loser was the magazine sector, which went from a 9% decline in the June half to a 26% decline in December.

But the really big loser has got to be classifieds. All newspaper and magazine revenues tend to be a mix of display advertising and classifieds. And while the display ads didn’t do too badly (national newspaper ads were down 5.6% for the year), classifieds took a bath, with newspaper classifieds down 32% and magazine classifieds down a blood curdling 45% (although they are a small part of the overall magazine revenue base).

Directories down? Well, yes… but not all is as it seems

The other segment that was down in the December half was classified directories, which includes print directories and used to also include The Trading Post print. Although there’s some pretty clear reasons why.

Firstly, the Trading Post print publication was closed during the year. This of course heavily impacts the result.

Secondly, Yellow Pages® and White Pages® print revenues are recognised in our accounts mainly in the half of the year following the sale. So the decline you’re seeing in print directories was actually the decline in sales experienced in the June half, when everyone else also fell.

So that’s it:
•    A media industry that’s coming out of the GFC with what looks like a sudden growth spurt in the first three months of this year;
•    And results across the industry that are so topsy turvy they’ll have your cheeks flopping about like a parachutists’ in no time.

Which leaves me with one final question.

Can someone please pass me that brown paper bag?