In April, it was revealed that UK traditional media budgets had been cut for the sixth successive quarter, with the trend continuing of moving adspend away from traditional media to direct marketing and the internet.
The Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), showed the weakest rise in marketing spending in four years (see
IPA Bellwether: Traditional Media Budgets Continue To Drop).
However, research from ZenithOptimedia predicted that global adspend is set to increase by 6% in 2006, up from 4.9% in 2005, attributing the strong growth to the World Cup held this summer, with the event expected to produce lots of promotional opportunities (see Global Adspend Forecast To See 6% Growth In 2006).
ZenithOptimedia’s report went on to say that worldwide adspend will slow slightly in 2007, reaching 5.6% growth, before dipping again in 2008 at 5.3%.
We also learned that US online advertising expenditure in the first quarter of 2006 rose by 9.3% compared to the last quarter of 2005. The study by Deutsche Bank, in conjunction with MediaPost, revealed that survey respondents spent $148.5 million on internet advertising during the first three months of 2006 (see US Online Adspend Up By 9.3% In Q1 2006).
Predictions by Merrill Lynch also pointed to growth in the online advertising industry, particularly with regard to Google, with the analyst saying that the search engine giant’s innovations were benefiting the entire industry (see Google Pushes Online Ad Industry Forward).
Elsewhere, take-up of mobile TV was being hindered by a variety of technological difficulties, according to research by Amberlight, whose director of consultancy, Gerred Blyth, said: “If operators could make their services easy to use and competitively priced then there is a real opportunity to become a valuable tool for people with time to kill.” (see Mobile TV Up-Take Slowed By Technological Faults)
But advertisers were urged to cash in on the mobile phone market by Magna Global, who forecast that the number of 3G phone users watching video worldwide will exceed 500 million by 2009 (see Mobile Phone Advertising To Increase).
Multimedia enabled mobile phones look set to double over the next two years even though there is an apparent lack of consumer interest, according to a report by In-Stat which also found that consumers were most interested in receiving real-time news, weather, sports and financial information via their mobile phone (see Multimedia Phones Set To Rise Despite Lack Of Consumer Interest).
And figures from A.T. Kearney revealed 56% of mobile phone users browsed the internet or downloaded emails in 2005, with a massive 92% of users in Japan going online via their mobiles (see Mobile Phone Users Embrace Device Online Capacity).
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