Ok, it’s in the U.K. and not the U.S. but it is still a major milestone when Internet advertising spending exceeds television advertising spending, even if it is in another country.
The Internet spend this year is at 23.5% of all advertising spending and television came in at 21.9% of marketing budgets.
They expected this to happen by the end of 2009 but the recession cut into the television pounds more than the Internet so the Internet caught up a few months earlier than expected.
Of note, 60% of the online spending went to search engines, mostly to Google.
It’s now just a matter of time before this happens in the U.S. and leads me to my favorite theme, are we providing local dealers with the tools they need to compete today? The answer for most brands is that we are still living in the good old days where newspaper advertising was the best place to reach consumers.
Google local search, online videos, microsites, social media, banner ads and more are the new methods, mediums and tools needed to reach today’s consumer and those brands that get good at online advertising will have an advantage for years to come.