by Lindsay Rowntree // May 1, 2017
The Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report released this week (25 April 2017) highlights the steady growth of advertising spend in the UK , with mobile contributing to 99% of new investment entering the internet ad market last year. Moreover, digital doubled its share recorded in 2012, accounting for 38% of the £1.1bn out of home advertising market in 2016. The only significant decrease in ad spend came from TV which reported a spending fall of nearly 2.1% in the final quarter, and is predicted to decrease by a further 0.5% in 2017. Internet ad spend surged by 15.3% during Q4 2016, hitting £10bn for the very first time. In spite of Brexit pressures, the WARC report predicts that the next two years indicate continued growth of 2.5% in 2017 and 3.3% in 2018. ExchangeWire asks the experts to weigh in on the results.
Content must still be held in high regard
“Evidenced by the results we are seeing, there has been a decrease in investment in editorial brands digitally yet an increase in overall internet investment. As an industry, we need to step back and realise that without content, walled gardens are pretty meaningless and editorial media companies can adopt some of the same strategies to succeed. We need to migrate the efficiency, scale, and addressability that is driving walled garden growth to editorial media brands in order to ensure that the internet is investing in its most important asset – content.”
Gareth Holmes, Managing Director EMEA, Sonobi