Digital advertising spend set to outstrip all other forms in the UK

The UK is on course to become the first country in the world where spending on digital advertising outstrips all other traditional formats combined, reports The Guardian.

As consumers increasingly shop on smartphones and tablets, more than half of the nation’s advertising budget is expected to go on digital media this year, with a boom in paid-for results on search engines such as Google, according to sales and marketing researchers Strategy Analytics.

The total UK advertising market will hit £15.8bn in 2015, up 5.5 per cent from last year the researchers said, and just under £8bn of that will go on digital ads, whether on search engines, mobile apps, newspaper websites or video-on-demand services such as ITV Player or 4oD.

While the UK would be the first country to break the 50% threshold for digital advertising, globally around 30 per cent of advertising spend goes on digital media, while in the US the figure is 28 per cent.

Strategy Analytics share of media advertising 2015 (Strategy Analytics)

The biggest casualty of the surge in online advertising has been traditional print media, with newspapers and magazines struggling to hold on to their market share. Print advertising revenues are predicted to fall by 0.2 per cent to £2.5bn.

Meanwhile, TV is expected to see its advertising revenue rise by 3 per cent to £3.8bn, although its overall share of the market will fall to less than half of digital media.

Speaking to The Guardian, Ian Barber, a spokesman for the Advertising Association, the industry’s trade body, said online platforms have opened the market to smaller firms that would not consider advertising on national TV.

He said: “British people love their smartphones, and they love shopping online, which is why our digital advertising sector leads the world.”

Read the full article from The Guardian

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