One of my consistent comments about the online advertising world is that all the forecasts are too low, and will always be reforecasted upwards, as folks start to realize that more and more advertising can be classified as “online.” SEW notes this trend here:
TNS Media Intelligence (which tracks online display advertising spend) has increased their forecast for 2006. This is a 4% correction from their earlier estimated growth, (and bucks the hold pattern or downward trend for other forms of advertising). The company cited earlier estimates as far too conservative after tracking faster than expected migration to the online space from traditional media. Online ad spend growth was 19.4% last first quarter, and is projected to continue to grow by 13% and reach a whopping 12% of total advertising spend in 2006. This figure is far higher than ever reported before.
Until the huge ROI gap between offline and online is closed we can expect huge growth in online advertising. Contrary to the points made below about offline ads, it should now be clear that money will surge online as advertisers realize how much offline is now simply wasted in search of the elusive “brand building through advertising”. (I’d suggest most brands are built without much advertising, but then agencies cash in on the success and squander money in negative ROI campaigns. Google and Yahoo are great examples.
I don’t think that’s true in the long term, John. A while back, just for fun, I dug through some old stories I’d done for Adweek in the late 1999s and found some long-term estimates were substantially lowered.
For example, in 1999, Forrester estimated the online ad market would reach $33 billion by 2004.
In May 2005, Forrester said total online ad spending would reach $26 billion by 2010.
Here’s more info: http://360techblog.com/2006/04/03/online-ad-forecasts-then-and-now/