Mobile advertising leaps 116 percent, but digital ad slowdown worries remain | TheMediaBriefing

Here’s a fact to brighten up your day: mobile advertising grew by 166 percent to £83 million in 2010, up from £37.6 million in 2009. New figures from PwC/IAB show that the rate of growth is unprecedented and is a note of optimism in an otherwise hesitant online advertising landscape.

Here are some other take-home points from the study:

– B2B and specialist media are increasing their share of the mobile ad spend pie, including telecoms and financial publishers, albeit from a low base

– Mobile search ad spend has tripled from 2009 to 2010, from £20.2 million to £54.9 million.

– Mobile display spend was up 61 percent to £28.1 million, up from £17.4 million in 2009,

– Mobile display ads, all those banner ads, text links and flashing things that you all ignore, rose 62 percent to £23.7 million.

– Pre- and post-roll ads rose 492 percent to grand total of… £1.1 million (translation: people didn’t used to have rich video-enabled phones, and now they have iPhones and Android phones).

– Entertainment is the biggest sector with 32.9 percent of mobile display ad spend, automotive is the smallest with a piddling 6.5 percent.

And the usage is, of course, through the roof. Smartphone ownership was up 58 percent year on year in 2010 to encompass 38 percent of the population – according to December figures from ComScore Loading… companies comscore .

And we’ve not even mentioned tablets yet. Here’s what Dominic Jacquesson, author of our new research report on mobile media strategies, says of them:

“When Apple Loading… companies apple-inc released its Q4 2010 sales, it revealed iPad sales of 17 million in the nine months since launch. It took the iPhone 21 months after launch to reach the same point. Every major analyst tracking Apple has under-estimated the success of the iPad, despite all the hype, and we can now expect sales estimates for 2011 to notch up once again.

From 15 million when it launched in April, to 28 million by November, and now nearer to 40 million – truly phenomenal for a brand new category of device, and starkly underlining the consumer appetite for tablets.”

What does this mean?

It means lots of people are buying smartphones and tablets and using them as a secondary – not primary – browser, and the ad market has a lot of catching up to do.

Mobile’s growth rate is impressive but the levels of spend are not. A 30-second advert during X Factor can go for as much as £250,000 – almost one tenth of the entire UK spend on mobile display ads.

Moreover, as the WARC figures from the end of last year showed (via Guardian), more than a third of display ad spend is specifically designed to get people to watch TV shows, to take them back to the big box in the corner and away from the small box in their hands.

Although, the two-screen viewing habits of modern Britons shouldn’t be ignored and so many of us watch the tube with a iPhone/iPad/laptop in front of us. TV vs mobile isn’t a zero-sum game and there is exciting growth in social TV participation business models.

Only so much money to go around

But the wider problem is a stagnation of online ad growth in the UK and elsewhere. If we look at the big picture, digital services will only account for 33 percent of European ad spend by 2014, including mobile and “desktop” browsing, according to PwC’s Global Outlook 2010-2014 study (pdf link).

According to Nielsen figures published in Marketing last week, 77 of the top 100 UK advertisers increased their spend in 2010, but at the same time the amount some big league player apportion to paid-for online ads is still tiny.

Proctor & Gamble spends 1.3 percent of its massive budget on paid-for display ads. Unilever Loading… companies unilever spends 1.9 percent of its budget on the same, or £2.6 million. O2 is notable for remaining the country’s biggest online advertiser by spend, despite decreasing its total ad budget by nearly a third.

There is a hell of a long way to go before ad buyers and agencies see mobile as a core part of their campaigns. And if WARC’s prediction of a 2.3 percent all-media UK advertising rise for 2011 is accurate, then there will be a lot of people fighting over want scant new money will enter the market this year. And despite the smartphone/iPad craze, you can bet it won’t be mobile advertising that takes the lion’s share.

via Mobile advertising leaps 116 percent, but digital ad slowdown worries remain | TheMediaBriefing.

Local Digital Ad Revenues to Nearly Double to $42.5B by 2015 from $21.7B in 2010

BIA/Kelsey Forecasts U.S. Local Digital Ad Revenues to Nearly Double to $42.5B by 2015 from $21.7B in 2010

The firm’s newly released U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast indicates digital media will represent 23.6 percent of all local advertising by 2015

CHANTILLY, Va.and BOSTON, Mass. (March 21, 2011) – Local advertisers continue their steady migration to digital media platforms, according to BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast (2010-2015). BIA/Kelsey, adviser to companies in the local media industry, expects online/interactive advertising revenues to climb to $42.5 billion by 2015, almost double 2010’s $21.7 billion, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.4 percent. This growth coincides with anticipated improvement in the U.S. economy and a continued rise in overall local advertising, which the firm expects will reach $153.5 billion in 2015, up from $136.3 billion in 2010, representing a 2.1 percent CAGR.

As digital media — delivered to consumers through mobile, Internet or other electronic methods — continues to gain traction with local advertisers, BIA/Kelsey predicts it will represent 23.6 percent of all local ad spending by 2015.

“As the business climate improves and advertisers step back into the market, they are gravitating to digital options that perhaps were not as mature before the recession began,” said Tom Buono, chief executive officer, BIA/Kelsey. “Our analysis indicates that as advertisers move to online, mobile and, particularly, the variants of social media, we are fast approaching a tipping point where digital media will soon become a dominant segment of the local advertising marketplace.”

BIA/Kelsey reports among the key drivers of this year’s forecast are:

• The increased number of smartphones and tablets is already playing a role in affecting revenue shares earned by traditional media.
• Continued significant newspaper revenue erosion will drive pay walls and other creative approaches for rebuilding revenue base.
• Intense political advertising and uptick in national advertising lifted television and other media revenues in Q4 2010, increasing prospects for the forecast period.
• The interactive/online sector continues to advance and multiply with new formats such as social and mobile.

“What we’re seeing in terms of media share shifts and transformation is really unprecedented,” said Neal Polachek, president, BIA/Kelsey. “As we look forward, the core issue challenging advertisers is to figure out a media plan that leverages the transactional nature of digital media with the scale and reach of traditional media.”

BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast also notes that social forms of digital media are increasingly becoming an important component of online revenues. Consumer spending on deal-a-day offers, which the firm expects will grow to $3.9 billion by 2015, illustrates an expanding market that includes Facebook and Twitter.

Topline numbers from the forecast were presented to some 500 local media industry executives this morning at BIA/Kelsey’s Interactive Local Media East conference, which is being held today through Wednesday at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

via BIA Kelsey – Press Releases.

Montreal’s La Presse set to go all digital-reports | Reuters

La Presse to slash print run by more than half

Will offer free iPads for long-term subscribers

One of Canada’s most influential French-language newspapers is discarding most of its print distribution to focus on a digital edition, and will give away iPads to promote the move, Canadian media reported on Friday.

La Presse, which was founded in 1884, will phase out its printed broadsheet over three to five years, online trade publication J-Source.ca said.

The Montreal-based newspaper’s circulation of around 200,000 will be slashed to 75,000, rival Le Devoir reported. It said La Presse will give away Apple iPads or similar tablet devices to subscribers who sign up for a three-year digital contract.

via Montreal’s La Presse set to go all digital-reports | Reuters.