72% Of Advertisers See More Digital Spending In 2010

A regional survey of 8,500 senior advertising, marketing and media executives by Round2 Communications found that 72% predict they will increase their spending on digital media in the coming year. Justifying this apportionment, 33.9% said ROI for new media is "somewhat" better than traditional, and 28.2% said new media's ROI is "significantly" better.

Along with the good news for digital media, the survey (which focused on executives from companies headquartered in the Western U.S.) delivered some bad news for traditional: 86% of the respondents say they expect their spending on traditional media -- including broadcast TV and radio and print newspapers and magazines -- to remain even (45.7%) or decline (40.3%) in 2010.

But despite all the negative publicity, it's worth noting that print still garners the lion's share of media spending, with 47% of those surveyed saying print is their single biggest media investment. That places it well ahead of email marketing, with 13.4% of respondents saying this was their main area of expenditure, and interactive advertising, at 10.2%.

However, these in turn trumped direct mail (9.7%), TV (8.6%), search (7%), and radio (3.8%). Meanwhile, the heavy print spending may be at least partly the result of discounts offered by print publishers, with 32.2% of respondents saying print currently offers the deepest discounts.

Setting aside the varied forecasts for traditional and digital media, there was a broad consensus that advertising is still important during an economic downturn; 97% of respondents agreed with this sentiment. Furthermore, 49.5% said advertising is "very important."

The survey represented a fairly balanced cross-section of the advertising client base: 28.5% of respondents said their companies market products, 32.6% market services, and the remainder market both.

As for size, 22.3% said they worked for companies with annual revenues over $1 billion, 15.5% said they worked for companies with revenues between $500 million and $1 billion, 21.2% worked for companies in the $100 million-$500 million range, and the rest came in below $100 million.

There were also a range of ad budgets, from above $25 million (8.8%) to $10 million-$25 million (6.7%) and $1 million-$10 million (18.7%), with the rest coming in below $1 million.