January saw the release of the IPA’s latest Bellwether survey, which found that in Q4 2008 annual marketing budgets were revised down to the greatest extent ever recorded in the report’s nine-year history.
The cut was the fifth successive quarterly reduction in spend, and 2009 is set to see further cuts, said the report (see
Q4 2008 Bellwether Report: Record Marketing Budget Cuts).
The IPA said 45% of companies reported that they were cutting marketing spend compared with last year, while just 20% said they were planning an increase.
Nielsen’s Global AdView Plus revealed that global advertising markets recorded 2.9% growth in the quarter from July to September 2008, in newspapers, magazines, TV and radio (see Q4 2008 Bellwether Report: Record Marketing Budget Cuts).
In the three months to September 2008, the global advertising market posted a 2.9% increase versus the same quarter in 2007, mostly driven by the Asia Pacific region (7.8%).
North America’s advertising market managed to bounce back to positive growth, up 3.1%, bolstered by the Olympics and the run up to the elections.
Sticking with the US, the results of a Gallup survey showed that Americans’ frequent use of the internet has almost doubled over the past five years (see Americans’ internet use rises).
The survey found that 48% of Americans now report using the internet for more than one hour per day, compared to 26% in 2002.
A report from the Yankee Group showed that US consumers are spending 11% more time online than watching TV, and internet video is emerging as the key platform for the delivery of on-demand video services (see US consumers spending more time online than watching TV).
The 2008 US Entertainment Survey also found that 56% of television viewers are online at the same time, browsing the web or sending e-mail, while 82% of internet video viewers watch TV shows online because they missed the episode on TV.
More than 146 million US internet users watched an average of 87 videos per viewer in November 2008, according to a report from comScore (see American online video viewing rises).
Google sites attracted 98 million online video viewers, or approximately two out of every three internet users who watched video during the month. Fox Interactive ranked second with 58.1 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (40 million) and Microsoft Sites (35 million).
Globally, meanwhile, the total internet audience (age 15 and older from home and work computers) surpassed one billion visitors in December 2008 (see Global internet audience increases).
The report, also from comScore, showed that the Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global internet users at 41%, followed by Europe (28% share), North America (18% share), Latin-America (7% share), and the Middle East & Africa (5% share).
