Member Article

Digital advertising spend continues to climb

Mobile advertising spend has surpassed the £0.5bn mark and now accounts for 10% of digital spend, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).

The IAB’s digital adspend report, conducted by PwC, shows digital advertising is up £607m as FMCG overtakes Finance as the biggest digital display advertiser.

Tim Elkington, director of Research & Strategy at the IAB, said: “Mobile has reached this milestone because marketers are becoming more attuned to the ‘always on’ nature of consumers who expect to engage with content wherever they are. Consequently, advertisers are increasingly buying integrated campaigns across online and mobile rather than regarding mobile as an afterthought.

“There’s simply so much buzz around mobile. In the last 6 months, 20 more of the UK’s top 100 advertisers have produced mobile-optimised websites; 4G mobile ultra-broadband is enabling a new era of richer content consumption with tablets predicted to outsell PCs in 2013. This will help maintain mobile’s significant momentum in attracting both consumer attention and advertising pounds.”

Video advertising grew 46% to £160m from £109m, accounting fro 12% of online and mobile display in 2012.

Social media advertising grew 24% to £328.4m from £265m, and online and mobile sponsorship advertising grew 34% to £65.7m from £49m.

The FMCG sector accounted for almost 16% of display ad spend in 2012, particularly driven by brand awareness goals, the IAB said. Entertainment and media retained a significant proportion of spend at 13%, and retail accounted for 12%.

Anna Bartz, Senior Manager at PwC, said: “The advertising market is shifting toward storytelling and integrated campaigns which give greater prominence to video and display formats with a higher degree of interactivity with the target audience.

“Over the past two years, the digital advertising revenue model has also changed from an emphasis on direct response to being more about branding and awareness.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .