Even though television continues to attract over two-thirds of global advertising budget of the soft drinks sector and a similar share in the food category sector, ad investment appears to be shifting heavily into internet formats.
A stark pivot to online advertising has been noticed in the financial services and retail sector, according to a report, with both hosting heavily developed digital platforms to serve customers.
Online growth
Across all categories, however, ad investment appears to be going online, according to the report by WARC, a global authority on advertising and media effectiveness.
James McDonald, Managing Editor, WARC Data, and author of the report, said that in a multichannel world, it has become harder than ever to track campaign performance, measure ROI, or to even trust third-party data.
“Additionally,” he said, “the problem is compounded by an environment of ad blocking, fraud, and consumer distrust, and is hazed by walled gardens, programmatic stacks and opaque practice. This results in millions of ad dollars wasted each year.” Digital advertising has long attracted fraudsters. Deceptive practices cost the advertising industry billions annually.
The industry intelligence included in the WARC report sheds light on how different sectors value advertising media and how this has changed over time. Advertising forecasts cover 97 markets, including India.
Fiscal sector ad spend
In the financial services sector, total global ad spend in 2018 amounted to $43.2 billion (+13 per cent year-on-year). While Internet was $19.7 billion (+24.4 per cent year-on-year), TV was $12.9 billion (+4 per cent), while the others were $7 billion (+6.7 per cent).
The report showed close to half of the $43.2 billion that financial services brands invested in advertising last year was directed towards internet formats. The data showed a dramatic shift to digital over the last five years; with the Internet’s share of sector spend growing 22 percentage points since 2013, to 45.5 per cent last year.
Food sector
In the case of food, total global adspend in 2018 was to the tune of $25.3 billion (+1.4 per cent year-on-year). Media spend on TV was $16.5 billion (+1 per cent year-on-year), Internet was $3.7 billion (+7.9 per cent). Print was at $2.8 billion (-12.7 per cent).
The report showed almost two-thirds of the $25.3 billion in ad investment within the food category last year was spent on TV, nearly double TV’s global share of 33.3 per cent. TV spend in the sector has dipped by 3.7 per cent each year since 2013 on a compound basis.