Marketing Pilgrim

As I noted in a previous post, forecasts say holiday spending will be down, except online. The US housing market is affecting advertising spend too. But again, online advertising is the bright spot. This is according to ZenithOptimedia. They downgraded its 2007 forecast for offline advertising which was already in the single digits. Online advertising is projected to rise 30% in 2008.

The upside is TV advertising sales globally should be at a record high next year because of the Olympic Games in China. You can see how markets outside the US are still growing, especially Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Here are some other findings:

• The drop in ad prices isn’t a freefall, but it has been downgraded to 2.5 percent growth in 2007. It was estimated to 3.3 percent, before the housing market woes.
• Most of the online advertising growth will be in video and local search. They say these will drove 30 percent growth in internet ad expenditures in 2007 – which is nine times faster than the rest of the ad market.
• The coming years will be even stronger for internet advertising. The report says that between 2006 and 2009, there will be an 85 percent increase.

It is still amazing that television advertising is still increasing and at record levels, even with free online content. The growth isn’t happening in the US though. In fact, the US is losing market share.

I can’t forget the sad plight of newspapers. Rather than video killing the radio star, it’s the online classifieds and news killing the newspaper. A 29% drop with another 6.2% drop for 2009 estimated.

Not to end on a down note, here’s some good news for one form of traditional advertising. Outdoor advertising is still growing, thanks to technology. The digital displays are working well as their market share is forecast to increase from 5.6 percent in 2006 to 5.9 percent in 2009. Read more at MarketingCharts.

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