Charles Buchwalter, SVP, Research and Analytics, Nielsen Online says, “In recent years the Internet has changed dramatically as people seek more personalized relationships online. In particular, time spent on social networks and video sites has increased astronomically. Advertisers are starting to positively re-assess the value of the online experience and create more meaningful relationships with consumers.” And that forms the basis of the new report by The Neilsen company on online advertising in 2009.
Although the report is predominantly Amercia based, there are some starkling numbers for digi marketers to note. The acceptance of the web has been universal and its growth though has unique regionalist characters has more or less shown a similar graph in terms of web usage. For instance, India might use Orkut more than Facebook, but the fact is they both are social networks. Given these reasons it wouldn’t be unfair to look at the report from a global perspective.
Some of the details that caught my attention were:
- In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.
- Marketers are being forced to adapt to social networking capabilities. In the age of Twitter, feedback barriers have all but disappeared, creating a near friction-free environment for playing back brand experience,campaign reactions or brand events. Recent public cases involving Motrin,Amazon, and Domino‘s show that marketers must be quick and savvy to react to these unprecedented channels of instant feedback.
- The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
- There are 87 percent more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883 percent more time devoted to those sites.
As you can see the dominance is shifting to more engaging, multi way modes of media. Emails might still continue to pull its weight as the most persuasive medium on the web, but social media and multi media sites are gaining momentum as bigger influences. The whole idea of marketing is changing with the increased engagement these media provide. And hence the report suggests that with increased user engagement social media, search and video will drive online advertising growth.
More importantly together they give multiple channels that cater to multiple marketing objectives thus giving more leeway for marketers to experiment and nourish their brands online.
The report suggests that with the recession, online display advertising has plateaued at 20 percent of total online ad spend in the U.S. The spending by financial services, automobile and retail companies has declined while industries such as healthcare, consumer products and telecommunications seemingly have increased online ad spends. The report believes that online advertising will stabilize in the near term.
Now even if one disregards any predictions or reports suggesting the future of online advertising, one can’t really deny the facts that stare at us. People are using social networks, people are eating up videos, putting up videos, people are having online dsicussions through multimedia and engaging with each other on multiple platforms.
The answer need not be just social media marketing here. It can very well still be online advertising. We just need to tune our ads to connect in this changing scenario. Just the way TV gave way to dynamism compared to print ads, online ads might very well need to get engaging and involve the user.
This is definitely nitpicking amidst a otherwise well intentioned write-up, but ‘starkling’ is not a word. Either you meant, ‘sparkling’ or ‘stark’! Or even ‘striking’ if you want to address those numbers as ones that demand attention.
@Kartik
I meant startling .. I have no clue how K came in place of T though.. that can’t even be a typo coz they are not near on the board..
but then again I am renowned for worse mistakes