According to a recently released study by IDC, the U.S. Internet Advertising 2008-2012 Forecast and Analysis, overall Internet advertising revenue will double from $25.5 billion in 2007 to $51.1 billion in 2012. During the forecast period, Internet advertising will grow about eight times as fast as advertising at large.
The Internet will go from the number 5 medium all the way to the number 2 medium in just 5 years, says the report, making it bigger than newspapers, bigger than cable TV, bigger even than broadcast TV, and second only to direct marketing.
Video advertising will be the principal disruptor of Internet advertising during this time, as its revenue grows sevenfold from $0.5 billion in 2007 to $3.8 billion in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate of 49.4%. Brand advertisers will shift significant amounts of money into video commercials, primarily from broadcast television and to a lesser extent from cable television.
Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Media and Entertainment, says “What will (help) drive this trend is that consumers are starting to realize that, as opposed to TV, Internet video lets them watch what they want, when they want, and increasingly, where they want.”
The challenge for Radio in general and your station in particular is to create a bona fide digital strategy that allows us to realize the potential value of the zillions of ears (and eyes and clicks) that radio can so effectively move on a moment’s notice.
A digital strategy is not a collection of new media toys affixed to your web page with the digital equivalent of masking tape.
By definition, a strategy begins with what is the best way to leverage your content and consumer desires and create the minimum number of speed bumps in their usage experience while also simply communicating what you want them to do on the site (or, more accurately, how you can enable them to do what they want to) and how.
This is an entire discipline that’s largely foreign to our industry. But now is the time to learn the ropes.
There are 51.1 billion reasons.
