INSIGHTanalysis: Media Healthcheck – September 2008
In September, a forecast from PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that although UK online adspend will post double digit growth this year, it is likely to fall as the economic downturn takes effect.
eMarketer predicted that search advertising will claim 60% of online ad spending in the UK for at least the next few years (see Search Advertising To Claim 60% Of UK Online Adspend).
Search is set to become more important, according to eMarketer. In the UK, search advertising has always taken a higher share of spending compared with other formats than it does in the US, it added.
Sticking with online, the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) found that the internet is continuing to prove the medium of choice for advertisers as they seek to maximise adspend budgets.
The research found that 81% of advertisers claim that their allocated online ad spend has grown in 2008 and predict that it will continue to do so over the next couple of years (+16% in 2009 and +17% in 2010).
Eighty two percent of advertisers who have seen an increase in their online spend admitted it is coming directly from the likes of print media (40%), TV (39%) and increasingly DM (32%) budgets (see Internet The Medium Of Choice For Advertisers).
The Nielsen Company released preliminary US advertising spending figures for the first half of 2008, which showed a slight decline compared to the same period last year (see US Adspend Declines Slightly In First Half Of 2008).
Overall, despite a continued softening of the US economy, several media and companies showed healthy growth in advertising for the first half. Advertising on cable TV saw the largest growth, with an increase of 8.1% over the first half of 2007, while spot radio fared worst among the 19 media categories analysed by Nielsen, declining by 10.1% compared with the same period last year.
TNS Media Intelligence also published figures for the first half of 2008, showing that total US measured advertising expenditures in the first six months of 2008 declined by 1.6% year on year (see US Adspend Down In First Half Of 2008).
US ad spending during the second quarter of 2008 was down 3.7% versus last year, the steepest quarterly drop since 2001, said TNS.
Market research firm Frost & Sullivan predicted that mobile advertising in the US will reach $1.9 billion in 2012 (see US Mobile Advertising To Reach $1.9bn).
With nearly 85% of Americans using cell phones, operators have a customer base of almost 250 million to be tapped for mobile ad revenues, according to the firm.
However, TNS released research which found that mobile providers looking to boost their revenues through content downloads and advertising are in for a rough ride.
While the vast majority of consumers believe that content downloads to mobile phones should be free of charge, there is a growing number that are so averse to advertising that they are now willing to pay a premium in order to avoid it (see Ad-Averse Mobile Users Will Pay To Avoid Advertising).