• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 10, 2013

According to the most recent quarterly survey compiled by STRATA, interest in digital advertising is closing in as several popular social media sites reached previously unseen levels of agency interest last quarter. TV advertising still remains the top advertising medium with 44% of survey respondents saying they are more interested in advertising on TV than any other medium. This represents the lowest level of broadcast advertising interest seen in the quarterly survey in nearly three years. Gaining steadily on TV, digital is the second most popular medium at 35%, the largest share of interest it has received in the survey’s five year history.  Digital is up 16% over last year.

Ad Agencies Changing Media Mix (Buyers, Q2 2013)
Agency Position	% of Respondents
Video, TV, cable, network and streaming main campaign focus in Q2	61%
More interested in streaming radio than last year	58
More interested in TV (spot TV/cable) than any other medium	44
More interested in digital than any other medium	35
Will spend more on digital than traditional in the next 1-3 years	28
Don’t anticipate ever spending more on digital than traditional	27
Source: Strata, August 2013

John Shelton, President and CEO of STRATA, says “… digital has become an integral component for many advertising campaigns… moving forward, we expect to see ad dollars split even more evenly between traditional media and… newer avenues… such as mobile and social media…”
Many of the non-traditional mediums continued to gain advertiser attention last quarter. 61% said Video (including TV, cable, network and streaming) was the main area of focus for their overall campaigns. 66% of respondents were more interested in online video than last year.

• YouTube is the top online video site for agencies (69%)
• Hulu is second (35%)
• Netflix and Vine are tied for third (14%)

Shelton says “… we’re just touching the tip of the advertising iceberg as Facebook, Twitter and others continue to expand their video offerings… expecting more online video advertising orders… due to the demand from media buyers and the increased capabilities of the sellers… “
Streaming/online radio continues to see momentum with 58% saying they are more interested in it than a year ago. Interest in traditional radio advertising continues to fall as 86% said their clients were interested in traditional radio at the same level or less than last year, representing the lowest rate of interest for radio seen in 19 quarters.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest all reported record highs for agency campaigns, and a large majority (74%) use free social media to support client campaigns and 25% say they see a better ROI on paid social compared to free. 11% experience a better ROI on free social.

The ad economy generally looks healthy as over half of the agencies polled experienced an increase in business compared to this time last year, says the report. Client attraction remains a main challenge for agencies (41%) and client spending is the next biggest challenge for agencies (21%). Client spending historically gets a spike in the second quarter as a major concern for ad agencies due to the completion of the ad orders from the first half of the year and uncertainty over ad spend for the next half of the year. 
Other key findings in the report:

• 28% of the respondents feel they will have a greater spend in Digital than Traditional in 1-3 years.
• 27% say they don’t ever anticipate a greater spend in Digital (down 45% and the lowest percentage ever)
• A vast majority of agencies choose to advertise via display ads on other mobile content (76%) rather than build mobile sites or applications themselves
• 24% of agencies plan on hiring (Down 22% from last quarter) and 72% are keeping staff numbers the same
  23% feel the economy and their business has returned to a strong growth period, while 26% expect that to occur by early 2014

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