Online Shines in UK as Old Media Ads Dim

Digital ads will weather the fiscal storm.

Advertisers in the UK are tightening their budgets and shifting their spending to more-effective and measurable methods. Online advertising will continue to benefit from this trend as marketers move away from traditional media in search of a more targeted audience.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau UK (IAB UK), in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Center (WARC), reported that total advertising spending in the UK was down 0.7%, coming to £8.9 billion ($17.4 billion) between January and June 2008. Online ad spending grew to £1.7 billion ($3.3 billion) in the first half of 2008, a 21% increase from the same period last year. Without online advertising, total ad spending would have been down 4.6%.

“Normally we would expect a rise in online ad spending associated with the end-of-year holidays,” said Karin von Abrams, senior analyst at eMarketer. “Any rise this year will be muted, thanks to continuing economic difficulties. But we still anticipate very solid full-year figures for 2008, and are interested to see that the IAB UK is predicting annual results for Internet ad spending that are similar to our own.”




In March eMarketer predicted that though the overall ad market would be affected by the financial sector’s woes, online ad spending would show double-digit growth through 2010. eMarketer estimates that spending will reach approximately £2.6 ($5.3 billion) in 2007 and £3.4 ($6.4 billion) in 2008.



“Internet use, and online activities such as e-commerce, video viewing and catching the latest news, are now firmly embedded in the lives of tens of millions of UK residents,” Ms. von Abrams said. “This isn’t going to change, and in fact most Web users are using online channels more than ever to keep on top of events, make their lives more efficient and help their money go further. This can only boost advertisers’ desire to put their messages in front of online consumers.”

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