... ad investment in paid search and internet display as well as providing data on broadband penetration, media time spent online and e-commerce per user data.
Additional key findings in GroupM's survey include:
- Digital advertising’s share of total ad investment rose from 4.4% worldwide in 2004 to a projected 18.8% in 2012.
- The average percentage of consumers’ “media time” spent online increased from 11% in 2006 to 19% in 2011.
- The absolute number of broadband homes worldwide has nearly tripled in this period to reach 500 million, and the typical country has seen broadband penetration grow by half.
- Aside from general monetary inflation, ad investment growth has two main vectors: aggregate audience hours, and advertising intensity per individual. Average online advertising investment per online user doubled between 2006 and 2011. For 2011, Norway had the highest per-capita online ad investment ($200) in the study’s sample.
- E-commerce accounts for about 5% of global retail sales today, with instant-on devices, secure and simple payment, vouchering, and the optimization of retail for mobile serving as catalysts for growth.
- Consumer tablet penetration reached double digits in only three of the survey’s countries in 2011: the US, Finland and South Korea. However, take-up is expected to be rapid and nine countries should reach double digit penetration in 2012.
The report was released today by London-based GroupM Futures Director Adam Smith and New York-based GroupM Interaction Global CEO Rob Norman.
Comments the latter: “At the risk of an ‘oh really?’ response, it’s possible to argue that - for the first time since these reports began - the last year has been one of evolution rather than revolution.
"It seems that less is brand new and that a combination of scale of usage of an increasingly social and mobile web, the penetration of devices supported by it, and the continued atomization of audiences and content, in both their creation and distribution combine to tell the story of the year.”
Adds Norman: “In 2007 we speculated about a world that would be truly social, searchable, mobile, addressable and interactive and illuminated by data that could be collected and applied across all marketing functions; in 2012 that is no longer a matter for conjecture.”