Co-op advertising has finally filtered into the digital media space to the tune of $1.7 billion in available dollars. Brand managers are offering programs for local retailers, subsidizing everything from banner ads to website development that help promote the brand. If you’re wondering how to tap into that lucrative stream or what small and medium businesses (SMBs) are doing with digital co-op, this is the report to read.
In our annual outlook, we estimate automotive advertising to hit $31 billion this year, about 14 percent of an increase over 2011. The biggest gainer? You guessed it, digital media. In fact, digital media will account for almost 90 percent of all automotive advertising growth this year as dealers and manufacturers drive more spending toward streaming video commercials, targeted social media ads and mobile. This 37-page report is our annual review of trends in both new and used car sales and the latest fluctuations in spending by manufacturers, dealers, dealer groups and private-party sellers.
Our 10th annual report documents offers benchmarking detail spanning more than 5,700 local media companies in the U.S. and Canada. Are yellow pages companies making the transition? How are Angie’s List, Groupon, Yelp and Craigslist and independent hyperlocal sites doing in the local online pureplay space? What should you be making in digital revenues if you’re a newspaper, cable system, TV station or radio station? Our 43-page report has it all – including two appendices listing 2011 and 2012 online ad spending for 210 markets.
This year will be the most expensive campaign year ever, at a whopping $9.8 billion, 40% higher than the last presidential campaign year. While other estimates are much lower, they fail to take into account , but about 13,000 state and local contests that will bring a bonanza of ad revenue for local media companies. Tallying the money spent on online media, direct mail, outdoor, radio and TV, 2012 political contests offer a big shot in the arm to media companies. The 20-page report shows “hotspot” markets across the U.S. and estimates market-by-market advertising levels for 210 localities and for each state.
There’s big change in the air for online recruitment advertising – a category that saw consistent double-digit growth for the past 15 years. With the economy still struggling against a straightjacket, there just aren’t that many jobs to advertise. And with so many candidates out there, recruiters barely need to advertise anyway. Basic media spending on recruitment advertising flattened out last year at $9.4 billion. We’re expecting that to fall 5.3 percent, to $8.9 billion this year. This 42-page annual report examines the recruitment landscape and offers deep detail on jobs and ad spending.
The rush is on to hire and train great AEs who can drive digital sales. But the big question is, how should they be paid, and how should multimedia sales staffs be organized? This 27-page report sheds light on what’s happening with the army of 81,000 local ad-sales reps in the U.S. as local media companies retool for the digital age. It includes 14 charts detailing the size of the various sales forces across traditional media and pureplay Internet companies, how many are “digital ready,” and their managers’ evaluations on their levels of effectiveness.
Local businesses have arrived en masse at the Social Media cocktail party. The sluggish economy has constricted their ad budgets, and posting messages on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter not only feels good, but also feels free. But it’s not. This report takes a deep dive into the attraction of social media to small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) and gauges their current levels of spending, forecast to double in 2012 and again in 2013.
Our latest report, “Budgeting for 2012: Local Online Advertising Forecasts and Key Growth Opportunities,” points to two amazing phenomenon. First, traditional media companies are gaining online share over pureplay Internet companies. And second, in a few short years, the vast majority of what we know as "online" will be served up on mobile devices. We are forecasting 18% growth next year as local online advertising goes from $15.7 billion to $18.5 billion in 2012. This report details the categories and formats pegged for growth, as well as individual market estimates.
Gain an understanding of the national results of the consumer and advertiser study. Receive valuable insights into consumer and advertising spending. Compare figures to your market to see how you compare to what's occurring across the US.
Main Street has gone “mobile,” adopting the latest new-media phenomenon at an alarming rate. Research indicates that half of all SMBs are hoping to jump on the mobile marketing bandwagon this year, driving combined spending on mobile advertising and promotions (including the ever-popular “deals”) over $1.2 billion this year. This 26-page report details the burst of interest by local businesses in using mobile devices to lure customers with proximity advertising, coupons and SMS offers. It offers 27 charts that show current and forecast trends for household penetration of mobile devices (including smartphones and tablets) and rich detail on local-business spending on mobile advertising and promotions.
Automotive advertising is finally on the rebound. Our annual look at this important ad segment pegs it at $22.6 billion this year, running about 7 percent ahead of last year. Our 2011 Local Automotive Advertising Outlook examines trends in new-car sales (down), used-car sales (up) and the underlying mechanics causing dealers to shift their spending toward channels like online media and cinema advertising. The report, which includes 20 charts and graphs, dives deeper into the online phenomenon, showing that auto dealers are the most aggressive local advertisers on the web, and that they’re likely to carry that mentality over to mobile media.
The downturn in the housing industry has forged deep changes in the way real estate professionals spend their ad dollars. Market indices point to a slow recovery in home sales, but the advertising recovery has already begun. Expenditures are forecast to increase 8 percent this year, to $21.8 billion. The most-favored medium is online, where agents, brokers, builders and mortgage lenders will plow $8.9 billion. That makes real estate the second-largest online advertising category. Our 56-page annual outlook examines housing trends, shifts in advertising between traditional print, online, broadcast and other channels, and takes a deep dive into what agents are doing – and thinking – about online marketing.
Despite the dearth of available jobs, recruitment marketing continues to grow – up an estimated 5.8% this year for all marketing expenditures and up 18.6% for online advertising. More than any other advertising category, recruitment has undergone the greatest transformation. Human resources professionals last year spent 57% of their advertising budgets on online media, principally to buy job postings or to access resume databases. That’s the largest share devoted to online for any advertising category. This report, “2011 Online Recruitment Marketing Outlook: Are the Jobs Ever Coming Back?,” represents our annual analysis of this important segment.
Our 9th annual, "Benchmarking Local Online Media: 2010 Survey," is out, delivering eye-popping insights on local online media revenues. Sites that focus on a particular category of content have begun to dominate the landscape, and many local operations that are the most successful are generating millions of dollars by selling a myriad of products beyond just banners. This industry paper analyzes revenue from nearly 4,600 local interactive operations and provides appendices listing market-by-market online ad spending by format, including spending on local coupons.
Local media companies looking for greener pastures have turned to Main Street shops, hoping to find gold. In our survey of 2,872 small and medium size businesses (SMBs), we found that they plan to increase their ad budgets 4.5% this year, but their online budgets 29%. The biggest gainers: email and social media advertising, including spending on their own websites. While 86% of SMBs reported having a website last year, that’s expected to go to 91% in 2011 – meaning there are very few left without a web presence.
Everybody’s trying to reach a local audience these days, but our new report finds that hyperlocal might also mean hypersmall. The big attraction to “local” comes from the fact that local websites hold more value because their site visitors make the vast majority household purchases within a few miles of their homes. Our new report digs into a few disturbing aspects of local site traffic, including data that show that the unique visitor-to-actual-people ratio is nearly 4 to 1.
After years of unfulfilled promise, local ad networks have reached maturity. Stories of CPMs doubling and large “spot” buys mean that the floodgates have begun opening for networks that offer targeted banners down to local websites. It may mean a bonanza for local media managers, many of whom operate sites with half their inventory unsold. The biggest beneficiaries are likely to be newspaper, TV and yellow pages websites, which control 80% of all local banner advertising, as well as the ad networks themselves.
Since 2001, Borrell Associates has been a pioneer in scrutinizing local media and the impact of disruptive technology on its ad revenues. In 2003, its landmark report on the subject, done in conjunction with then Harvard Assistant Professor Clark Gilbert, a protégé of Clay Christensen, was released. The report was a major wake-up call to the country’s local media giants. A 2007, condensed reprint of “Disruptive Technology and Local Media” is available for free.
Retail sales will dip this year, but that hasn’t stopped retailers from plowing more money into marketing. Retail ad expenditures are up 9% and their promotions spend is up 16.6%. This 60-page report, "U.S. Retailing: Sales, Marketing and the Move to Online," details game-changing shifts. While traditional advertising is forecast to increase 5% over the next five years, promotions and non-ad marketing will increase at five times that rate. And the biggest gainer of all, of course, will be interactive marketing. The report includes an appendix that details online and offline marketing expenditure trends for 34 individual business categories.
The power of proximity-based, or location-based, advertising poses radical challenges to the mass media model of aggregating local audiences and selling them to local advertisers. Our latest report, “Proximity-Based Marketing: Mobile Devices Untether Advertising from Media,” examines the latest in a 15-page industry paper that gauges mobile proximity-based advertising at $200 million this year, swelling to $760 million in 2011 and springing to $6 billion by 2015.
Mobile apps are all the rage. More than a half-million apps are downloaded every single hour, and the average smartphone user has 22. But the future is cloudy for those trying to tackle the mobile universe via an app. Research shows that after six months, only one of those original 22 apps is still in use. On top of that, a debate is raging as to whether apps will survive a more sophisticated mobile browser fueled by HTML5.
Social networks are increasing their ad revenues at a tremendous pace and before long it could take a toll on ad spending at local media Web sites. In this latest paper, we track the advertising and promotion spending for social networking as well the new rules of marketing under this new “anti-mass” media. Included in the paper is the latest local and national ad and promotions spending projections for social networks by DMA.
Mobile marketing is exploding, fueled by an installed consumer base of 234 million cell phone users and the quick uptake of smart phones, now in the hands of nearly one-third of consumers. The implications at the local level are enormous. This report examines mobile marketing, breaking down the difference between mobile advertising and mobile promotions, and examines what appears to be the first “killer app” for mobile: couponing. It is the first – and a scene-setter – in a series of reports we will publish this year on the local mobile marketing phenomenon.
It’s an “even” year, which means another uptick in political advertising. That’s good news for broadcasters – where most of political advertising winds up – and good news for just about everybody else, too, because of a recent Supreme Court ruling that should open the door to about $400 million more political ad spending this year. A decade-long uptick in political spending has forced a crooked smile on our forecast. It starts at $4.2 billion this year and zig-zags up to $41 billion in the 2012 presidential election year. Online is still barely 1% of all political advertising, just $44 million this year. Our 24-page report includes 12 charts and an appendix estimating political ad spending in each of the 210 DMAs.
