Social Media Display Fuelling Ongoing Internet Ad Growth

The Internet will attract 21 percent more ad spend each year on its way to gobbling 22.1 percent of the total market by 2014, according to latest ZenithOptimedia projections.

Already, 25 percent of advertising money is online in Denmark, Norway, South Korea, Sweden and the UK. ZenithOptimedia reckons Canada, China, Norway, South Korea, Sweden and the UK will hit 30 percent by 2014.

ZenithOptimedia says the rush to advertise on social networks means display advertising is now catching up with paid search to be the Internet’s dominant ad type. It expects display will rise from 36 percent of 2011 Internet spend to 41 percent in 2014.

• Television‘s share of advertising is expected to hold steady for now, but: “As the global economy improves we expect consumers to spend more time and money on activities outside the home, leaving less time for television.”
• Print media ad outlay will shrink by one percent a year, but that does not include spending in print publishers’ websites and tablet apps. “The prospects for newspaper and magazine publishers are therefore not quite as bleak as our headline figures would make them appear,” ZenithOptimedia cautions.

ZenithOptimedia has marginally increased its forecast to an expected 4.8 percent growth in 2012 global ad spend - based on an up-turn in marketing investment and “a reduced risk of disastrous collapse in the eurozone, even though its short-term economic performance has deteriorated”.

And 60 percent of all the forecast 2011-2014 growth is expected to come from emerging markets.