Digital advertising will account for more than half of ad spending by 2019 as print continues double-digital falls, according to one of world’s biggest media agencies.
A forecast today by IPG Mediabrands predicts the market share of digital advertising will grow from its current 36.5 per cent to 56 per cent of Australia’s $12bn advertising budget.
While the forecast makes no predictions about the print market, the huge digital gain has to come at the expense of something and while it says the usually resilient free-to-air TV market share will drop from 26.6 per cent 19.9 per cent, print is likely to keep taking big hits.
Latest figures by the Commercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia show big falls for print channel ad spends for the first half of 2014.
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Newspaper advertising spent fell 18 per cent in January to June this year compared to the same time last year, while magazines fell 17.3 per cent and other print 25.3 per cent.
The print market now makes up 19.2 per cent of total ad spend, down from 24.1 per cent in the same period of 2013.
Print may get some help from outdoor, which grew 7.8 per cent in the past year to September and bumped its market share 0.2 per cent to 4.8 per cent in 2013, with the chief executive of the biggest outdoor media company expecting it to rise to six per cent in the next few years.
However, digital is making significant gains there too, with its share of outdoor ad spending growing from 13.9 per cent to 15.8 per cent, after jumping from 7.5 per cent in 2012.
The trend is likely to accelerate as major outdoor media companies oOh! Media and APN Outdoor talk up their digital assets and plan to convert many of their printed assets to digital in the next few years.
Mediabrands predicts much of the digital market share gains will be driven by mobile advertising, which will account for 70 per cent by 2019. Both social media and online video spending will more than quadruple.
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