There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer to me. I have read three different studies in the space of three days….
1) The IAB have announced that online advertising has outstripped TV advertising in terms of spend in the UK. A 4.6% growth in the first half of the year has pushed online past TV 6 months ahead of schedule because of the recession. “More marketeers are pushing ad spends online because of its reliability for delivering accurate figures and accountability”
2) Meanwhile, according to the NYT (Bits) online advertising continues to fall because of the recession. Down 5.4% from April to June compared to the same period in 08. “The decline in spending by ad category was concentrated in industries “that were themselves depressed,” Mr. Deighton said, among them automobiles, classified, financial services and retail.”
3) Then I saw this, Barely Anyone Clicks on Online Ads anymore article. I am sure the internet walked away from this week feeling slightly bruised and battered especially when “The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks, according to the most recent”
Market patterns are clearly fluctuating depending on the market you are in. TGI suggests on a macro-level that advertising messages do not help users in making decisions about products as much as they did, instead they are making decisions based on branded content/commercial messages.
Its clear that content is key moving forward and creating interesting branded content experiences will enable online “advertising” to regain some of its credibility which seems to have slipped if two of the three reports above are to be believed.
