Increasing advertising budgets in digital platforms don’t come out of thin air, they come from print ad budgets. While it’s true advertisers spend a little more overall each year, the bulk of the growth in digital platforms comes directly from another media’s prior years’ budgets.
Last fall DIGIDAY and Adap.tv surveyed advertising agency executives and advertisers’ own marketing executives to catch a glimpse at where the money fueling online is coming from. Particularly, their quest was with regards to online video advertising and where these budgets come from.
An important part of the transferred budgets according to ad agencies come from online display advertising, however it can be argued that online video advertising is a subcategory of online display… The next most important is to take it from broadcast TV, or rather redistributing the whole “video” pie which would include broadcast TV, online video and on-demand video through a subscription service.
Advertisers themselves however plan to shift their print budgets to online video. This is by far their #1 priority followed by cutting broadcast TV and a transfer from display advertising.
Why the hype over online video? Why transfer so many budgets from so many different sources? Predominantly in 2011 it was to build brand engagement whereas in 2010 it was for brand awareness (which in 2011 fell to 5th in importance). Other primary objectives for use of online video ads according to advertisers in 2011 was to drive web traffic, build purchase intent and increase ad recall.
