New Media Ad, Marketing Spend to See Double-Digit Growth

Marketers and brand advertisers continue to shift dollars from traditional media to digital channels. PQ Media’s “Alternative Media Forecast: 2008 – 2012” report released yesterday projected spending on what the report classifies as alternative media to reach $73.4 billion by the end of the year.

For alternative media, including both marketing and advertising, PQ Media calculates the compound annual growth rate at 21.7 percent from 2002 through 2007. Alternative advertising accounts for 53.4 percent, and alternative marketing for 46.6 percent of alternative media.

The report finds comparable growth rates for online spending to the full year 2007 report published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau last month, though a report released by TNS calculates only display advertising for its online media totals.

Alternative media is defined by PQ Media as strategies that bypass the traditional advertising and marketing to reach target audiences through new media and pervasive means including product placement on broadcast television. Categories tracked in the report include online, mobile advertising, consumer-generated and social network media, e-media, Internet Yellow Pages, online classifieds and displays, online video and rich media.

By category, online and mobile advertising accounted for $29.9 billion in 2007. Interactive marketing comprised $11.9 billion in spending last year. The two categories held a market share of 40.8 and 16.2 percent respectively.

PQ Media finds alternative media breaks through the clutter, and follows consumers where they spend their time. “Consumers are spending more time out of home,” said Patrick Quinn, president and CEO of PQ Media. “They are spending more time at work, in traffic, at airports…That is part of the time shift in spend we see in alternative media.”

The shift leads media buyers to diversify to more integrated media buys, often hinging on alternative media. “It is becoming more of a media mix plan,” said Quinn. “You had only eight choices of media marketing years ago. Today you have six dozen. It’s become more complex for marketers. Going for multiple media mix plans is a focus for media agencies. There has to be for [current] conditions in the marketplace.”