MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US advertising on digital media higher than on print in 2010

Outsell vice president Chuck Richard lead author of the study

United States advertisers are spending more this year on digital media than on print according to the latest study by Outsell. Long predicted, the Madison Avenue milestone has finally arrived thanks to a 9.6% boom in digital advertising in 2010.

That number comes from Outsell's annual advertising and marketing study, which collected data from 1,008 US advertisers in December 2009. Of the 368 billion US dollars marketers plan to spend this year, 32.5% will go toward digital; 30.3% to print. In dollars that is 119.6 billion and 111.5 billion. In digital, internet will concentrate 52.8% of ads on line.

Digital spending includes e-mail, video advertising, display ads and search marketing. “It's a watershed moment,” says the study's lead author, Outsell vice president Chuck Richard.

As disrupting as this digital onslaught is to champions of print, the Outsell report has some surprising news for one old media category. Ad spending for magazines will rise this year by 1.9%, to 9.4 billion. That number reflects a spending boost of 4.2% for consumer titles. “Marketers are telling us they're giving this print category some serious attention,” says Richard.

Digital may now be the primary survival strategy for publishers, but Richard offers another glimmer of optimism for the print industry. After a year of pounding their expenses and debt into far slimmer balance sheets, “We should see far fewer closures and cutbacks among traditional media,” he says.

Not so for mobile marketing, another category studied in the Outsell report. “The proof isn't in yet that mobile spending is all that effective,” says Richard. He offers this example: The Sports Illustrated swimsuit iPhone app was touted by many as a huge success. The issue is the most hyped magazine event of the year. The app was the 33rd-highest-grossing mobile app in the iPhone store.

“But if you do the simple math, 32,000 people paid 2 USD apiece to download it. That's 64,000 USD”. A single page of advertising in the print version of the swimsuit edition, says Richard, brings in about 135,000 USD a page. “It's time for a reality check.”

Marketers seem to know that. In spite of the staggering number of ventures flinging content onto mobile platforms, advertisers will spend 16% less on mobile in 2010, notes the study.