October 1, 2009 by Jenny Sanderson
Spending on online advertising has overtaken television for the first time, according to a joint study from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the Internet Advertising Bureau. The rise in spending is being touted by industry analysts as a huge milestone in the evolution of advertising.
Most experts believe that the toppling of television from the top spot was at least partly due to the recession, during which overall advertising budgets have been slashed and marketing managers have been forced to divert money to the more trackable, versatile forms of marketing online. Not just a few either, overall UK outlay grew 4.6% in the first seven months of this year, taking the total spend to £1.756 billion.
Through the process may have been exacerbated by the recession, it has been going on for a long time and most industry insiders believe that this would have happened in the next few years anyway.
“It had to happen eventually, but online advertising has been seen as the poor cousin to TV for so long that it’s still a huge milestone.” – Justin Pearse
Advertisers in the traditional media have pointed out that to compare TV and online advertising is unfair as online encompasses many more divergent platforms than TV. However, online advertisers could easily retort that it is precisely this range of choice that makes a online a better platform.
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