UK online ad spending will pass £3 billion in 2008, and show healthy growth despite financial and political uncertainties in Britain, according to a new forecast from eMarketer focusing on the year ahead.
E-commerce will also thrive, passing £50 billion as more consumers avoid the stress of crowded transport systems and city centres to shop from home.
UK consumers use social networking sites more than consumers in any other European country. But the reach of social networking sites will peak at just over 80% of Britain’s online population for two reasons, said eMarketer.
First, most UK internet users who want to share their lives online are already doing so, leaving young people (kids and ‘tweens’) as the largest single source of growth in the future. Second, there will be rising concern about the perils of sharing personal information online, as breaches of privacy and security are widely publicized.
eMarketer added that across Europe, the social and cultural gap will widen between seniors (ages 55 or older) who join the online population, and those who don’t.
In the UK, pensioners say they would rather surf the web than garden. Online seniors constitute an expanding and generally affluent market for certain goods and services, including travel and financial products. Advertisers who identify and develop opportunities for this audience could reap big rewards.
Ofcom’s recent Communications Market Report 2007 found that over 55s spend an average of 42 hours online every month, more than any other age group (see Silver Surfers Spend More Time Online Than Any Other Age Group).
Meanwhile, a recent forecast from GroupM predicted that the UK will be the first major economy where advertisers spend more online than on TV ads (see UK Online Adspend To Overtake TV In 2009).
According to the GroupM forecast, UK internet adspend will overtake TV adspend in 2009. In addition, the media planner and buyer said that Sweden will this year become the first country in which advertisers spend more online than on TV.
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