I picked up an article in the Australian Financial Review and AdNews (you need subscriptions to both to access these articles online) quoting research from the Commercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia ("CEASA") showing the current trends in Online Advertising. These statistics are expressed in terms of share of total advertising spend.
It is pretty easy to get carried away in detailed analysis of these statistics, but I see three very interesting trends.
- Despite media rhetoric to the contrary, the share of advertising spend represented by newspapers and TV is decreasing (the CEASA report as reported in the AFR goes on to say that spending in thse categories did increase in nominal terms, but the share of spend is increasing at a rate less than inflation).
- Clearly, the FASTEST growing category is Online Advertising (the think green line in this chart). Note in this case, the share of ad spend is increasing at an INCREASING rate.
- Online Advertising is now EQUAL in terms of total spend to radio advertising.
These statistics are, for me, one of the most telling indicators of the change we are experiencing in the Digital Services space. REAL money is moving into this category and it is coming at the expense of the traditional channels which have dominated marketing and advertising for the last half century and the century before that.
This presents interesting challenges for marketers... according to these trends, you now need to allocate AT LEAST 9% of your advertising expenditure to Digital Channels and, according to recent research done for eMitch by Roy Morgan Research, you will need to increase this to 21% over the coming twelve months.... and don't be scared to ask for help, there are some of us out there who have been doing this stuff long enough to help you be successful as you move your spend online.
This is why I love my job.... we ARE changing the world.
