If the medium is the message, which medium do today’s hottest brands and companies choose to get their messages out? That’s the challenge facing companies today because the number of platforms – television, print, online, radio – is proliferating with no end in sight. But is simply buying an ad on a website or a 30-second spot on TV the best use of today’s advertising dollars?

Companies that want to engage with today’s consumers will have to start turning their ads into content, according to the CEO of eMarketer, Geoff Ramsey. “Ultimately, they will need to be able to produce content that is so compelling, relevant and entertaining that consumers will seek it out and want to share it with others. The new ad model is about creating great content and finding clever ways to embed it in the fabric of communities and content platforms where consumers are hanging out and actively participating,” Ramsey wrote in a recent online article.

While mainstream media brands remain relevant, more and more companies see custom media, or custom publishing, as the wave of their marketing future. A 2006 survey by the Custom Publishing Council in the United States showed:

•    Seven in ten chief marketing officers believe that custom publications would have a positive effect on people’s attitudes, leaving them feeling more favourable toward the sponsoring company.
•    Almost 80% of the marketing officers believe people receiving custom publications will be more likely to buy from the company again.
•    Nearly nine in ten cite using web content and websites in their marketing plans.
•    More than two-thirds use custom print newsletters and e-newsletters.
•    Marketing officers also see growth ahead for such things as blogs, podcasts, webcasts and other similar content.
•    More than 40% of the marketing officers reported pulling money away from traditional media toward custom media in the last year.
•    About 79% of the chief marketing officers believe that custom media should be an integral part of the marketing mix for any business and 78% agreed custom media represents the future of marketing.

“While top marketing executives unquestionably believe in the power of custom publishing, they do have concerns,” according to Michael Horgan, the editorial director of Penton Custom Media. In a recent article published on the website, www.b2bmarketing.com, Horgan said 90% of the chief marketing officers polled in the survey said they would use custom media more if there were a way to measure return on investment. “These statistics illustrate the importance of ROI measurability and cost in determining which, if any, custom media tools today’s top marketers will use,” Horgan said.

Three forces have arisen to drive the growth of custom media, according to Don Schultz, the author of Integrated Marketing Communications. Custom publishing is an industry that in 2006 was valued at US$4.4 billion, but is expected to grow to US$7.5 billion by 2011. Schultz says technology, branding, and globalisation converged in the 1990s and pushed organisations toward the integration of multiple business strategies, which included marketing communications.

“The integration of marketing activities around the singular focus of the brand became mandatory in many organisations and at the same time dramatically changed the traditional approaches to advertising and marketing.” Schultz said. “Marketing communications has moved away from the traditional approach that labels it a ‘creative process’ to one that is now viewed as ‘an asset the firm owns.’”

As mentioned above, the media and advertising landscape has changed forever and now consumers have a choice of literally thousands of platforms, according to King Fish Media, a U.S.-based custom publisher. “It is the consumer that is in control of the media channels. To get the best results from marketing messages, companies need to own their own channel and not rent it from someone else.”