Online Expected To See Revenue Reach £350 Million
The burgeoning online advertising industry will receive a further boost next month with official figures seen by NewsLine revealing record revenues well over £300 million for the medium during 2003.
Full-year figures are not due to be published until the end of April, but NewsLine can reveal that adspend has risen as high as £350 million, representing growth of almost 80% on the previous year’s figure of £197 million.
The growth in adspend has been fuelled by a significant increase in the number of advertisers using online as part of an integrated strategy. There has also been an incremental rise in the amount of time consumers spend using the internet.
Danny Meadows-Klue, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau, said: “We are confident that the internet advertising market will be worth more than £300 million when the final 2003 figures come through. The growth in online continues to exceed the growth in any other media channel.”
He added: “We have passed a tipping point in online media and growth will continue with a snowball effect from here onwards. We’re finally seeing the internet being incorporated as a vital part of the media plan, rather than just something that occasionally appears on the media schedule.”
Automotive and financial service advertisers look set to continue to be the biggest online spenders. Both have significantly increased their investment in the medium over the last year and have been successful in exploiting the rapidly expanding range of new creative design tools.
It is also expected that a number of the UK’s biggest FMCG brand-owners, such as Proctor & Gamble, Lever Fabergé and Unilever, will divert some of their vast television spend into online, in an attempt to cut costs and achieve greater return on investment going forward.
Search targeted marketing will continue to grow as more and more advertisers realise the potential of the internet as a direct marketing medium, but there will also be a marked increase in the number of advertisers using the internet for its brand building capabilities.
According to the IAB, the roll-out of its universal advertising packages will be key to the growth of online advertising over the next twelve months. The standardised formats are already being adopted by advertisers, but the target is to have at least one of the formats on half of Britain’s websites by July (see IAB Launches Consultation Drive For Bigger Ads).
Meadows-Klue said: “One of the key things that has changed is that marketers are realising that their corporate website is not the be all and end all of their online presence. They have cottoned on to the fact that there is a whole variety of digital media and marketing products to choose from.”
IAB: 020 8683 955 www.iabuk.net
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