ADVERTISING AGENCIES ARE STEADILY MOVING INTO THE INTERNET AGE, SPENDING MORE ON ONLINE ADVERTISING

The cast of "Mad Men" looking sharp in their 1960's outfits (Click Image To Enlarge) 

Long criticized for hanging onto the Mad Men era of advertising for far too long, ad agencies are steadily moving into the Internet age, according to data released today by Advertising Age.

The weekly magazine said a little over 30% of agencies’ revenue last year, or $10.1 billion, came from “digital,” up from 28% in 2010. The data is drawn from about 1,000 agencies and holding companies.

Advertising agencies are going digital.  In 2011, 28.0% of advertising agency revenues were from online ads, projectred to grow to 30.3% in 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Overall, digital revenues rose more than 16% last year, with digital-focused agencies such as those focused on search, social, and mobile taking nearly $6 billion of the total.

Still, large agency holding companies have reported similar percentages, says Ad Age. Publicis Groupe has said digital comprised nearly 31% of last year’s revenues, up from 28.0% in 2010. WPP said “direct, digital and interactive” revenue was nearly 30% of revenues last year, up about a percentage point.

Of course, you’ll know ad agencies have really embraced digital when they stop using that dated word, which conjures up not so much Google and Facebook but a defunct Massachusetts computer maker swallowed up long ago by two other tech companies.

COMMENTARY:   In a blog post dated April 21, 2012, I reported that online advertising for the year 2011 reached $31.7 billion.   

Search advertising continues to dominate growth in online ads, even gaining a little market share over other types of advertising in 2011, according to a biannual report released April 18, 2012 by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). But the biggest growth story is mobile ads, which saw triple-digit gains last year.

According to the IAB report, available in full here along with accompanying presentations, overall online ad revenues rose 22% over 2010, to $31.7 billion. That catapulted online advertising past cable TV advertising for the first time.

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Highlights of the report:

• Mobile experienced the fastest growth of all categories – triple-digit growth year-over-year – up 149 percent to $1.6 billion in full-year 2011 from $0.6 billion in 2010.
• Digital video, a component of display-related advertising, saw a significant uptick of 29 percent year-over-year, bringing in $1.8 billion in revenue in 2011 compared to $1.4 billion in 2010.
• Search revenues in 2011 totaled $14.8 billion, up almost 27 percent from $11.7 billion in 2010.
• Display-related advertising revenues in 2011 totaled $11.1 billion or 35 percent of 2011 revenues, up 15 percent from $9.6 billion in 2010.
• Retail advertisers continue to represent the largest category of internet ad spending, accounting for 22 percent in 2011, or $7.1 billion, up from 21 percent ($5.5 billion) reported in 2010.

Also interesting: Despite lots of talk lately about brands looking to move dollars from TV to online, performance-based, usually direct-response ads–those measured by overt actions such as clicks–are still gaining online vs. impression-based ads usually aiming at branding. For the time being, broadcast and cable TV still rules for brands.

Courtesy of an article dated April 30, 2012 appearing in Forbes

 

Comments

[Indian Advertising Agencies in USA]

Looks like you are a specialist on this because you just made it so easy to be with you, motivated me to learn more on the subject!

[Video Transfer]

Thank you, really interesting read.