Brand Ad Spending to Pass Search in 2012
Digiday and Vizu Report: Online Brand Advertising 2012 Outlook
Consumers are migrating online at a rapid pace, and this year brand marketers are predicted to follow their lead. While online marketing budgets have traditionally been devoted to direct response advertising, a recent report from shows that 2012 may be a year of change — brand advertising is positioned to take the lead in digital spending in 2012.
The report, which surveyed more than 450 digital marketing and media professionals, predicts that nearly 60% of digital advertising dollars will be devoted to brand advertising this year. For the first time in history, marketers could potentially spend more on brand advertising than on direct response advertising.
Brands: Projected spending increase over 2011 and allocation of 2012 budgets
Source: Digiday; Online Brand Advertising 2012 Outlook
According to Forbes contributor, Robert Hof, “the findings also come as some analysts, such as J.P. Morgan’s Doug Anmuth, also sees a shift in growth prospects from search and other direct response ads to branding or image ads.” A recent report from Forrester mirrors these predictions and expects the search market share in interactive ad spend to drop significantly in the coming years.
Search Retargeting and Brand Marketing
Despite these predictions, brand marketers and agencies are skeptical that media sellers can even reach their narrowly defined target audiences. According to Digiday’s report, “only 6 percent of brands and 16 percent of agencies surveyed said they “strongly believe” media sellers’ claims that they can reach the custom or niche audiences that brands seek.” As brand marketers explore channels for display advertising, search retargeting’s ability to target in-market ‘hand raisers’ could prove to be a useful tactic to successfully reach those ‘niche’ audiences through online advertising.
Download the full report here >>
