For the first time since Internet adspend began its dizzying climb, television advertising spend has dropped. A new report into online adspend shows that in the UK internet advertising has now broken the £2bn mark. When I began watching these figures in early 2005, internet was catching up with radio spend. In the UK, we now spend almost 4x more on online ads than we do on radio advertising and display advertising has also been dwarfed.
So it is no surprise that Microsoft has just gone all out, spending a reported $6bn on online advertising company aQuantive Inc. But it’s still playing catch-up with both Google and Yahoo! having made similar acquisitions previously.
I’m interested in the fate of TV adspend. Until now, overall marketing budgets had been increasing with TV spend increasing also. Now this trend has slowed and actually reversed, the future of Independent television is evolving. In the UK, ITV is the broadcaster that feels slow to respond to such changes. The new website does not live up to the hype and the other major stations appear to be drawing ahead in the IPTV race.
Interesting times ahead.
Thinking about the issues all this raises, here are a few comparisons about market growth and online adspend. They’re from articles or papers where I’ve tried to contextualise what is really happening.
For the UK there’s some thoughts about TV, but it’s too early to see the drop (most recent first)…
US boom just keeps on coming
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/articles/2007/10/us_online_adspend_new_records.html
UK spend shows the transition between media
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/insight/2007/10/uk_digital_advertising_market.html
Mexico starts late but accelerates fast
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/articles/2007/07/mexico_hits_the_internet_tippi.html
Switzerland lags behind where it could be:
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/articles/2007/09/sizing_the_gap_swiss_marketers.html
Central & Eastern Europe rising quickly
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/insight/2007/05/digital_central_and_eastern.html
Spanish internet use and spend starts to accelerate
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/insight/2007/04/spain_understanding_the_online.html
Denmark: always out in front
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/articles/2005/01/danish_awards_put_internet_in.html
Some horridly wrong predictions in 2005 about where the market might be heading
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/insight/2005/04/digital_advertising_futures_th.html
The first attempt to track European online adspend for 2005
digitalstrategyconsulting.com/insight/2006/02/digital_europe_tracking_the.html