• by Seana Mulcahy , October 15, 2007

Ah, just what I love to hear: big brands mandating more of a digital push. Better late than never, guys. That being said, I'm a bit unlike my comrades. I don't believe that digital media should be a certain percentage of the overall media spend generically. I see percentages thrown in pitches and media plans with no real rationale behind it. Simply put, it depends on the brand and what the media objective is.

There have been books and blogs written about it. We all seem to be obsessed with it. However, there is no cut-and-dried answer to what percentage of media dollars should be allocated to digital. This is where media is much more of an art than a science. Isn't it?

I'm sure if I ask you what Intel's tagline has been in traditional media for years and years, would you know?  Of course it is "Intel Inside." Well, good old Intel seems to have taken an inside look at its consumers, and found them spending less time consuming television and print. They are going online to buy desktop and laptop computers.

Intel Corp. has decided that its co-op ad program will now shift at least 35% of its ad dollars to digital media.

 "We're going where the consumers have gone," Sean Maloney, executive vice president at Intel, told The New York Times. "For the longest period of time, consumers formed their attitudes through TV, print, radio, and from the middle '90s onward, there was more influence from the Net," he was quoted as saying.

So what does this mean? Well first off, it's co-op. So you'll see big companies like Dell, HP, Toshiba, IBM, Sony and Lenovo shifting 35% of their budgets to online media in 2008.

Maloney continued in his Times interview, "In the last year, there appears to be an acceleration of attitude-forming, opinion-forming, online, instead of in the traditional media, and we have to respond appropriately."

An Intel survey on consumer buying decisions showed that "three or four out of the top five sources have something to do with the online media," Mr. Maloney said, including blogs and  search engines

"TV, print, can play a role," he added, "but once you're researching a purchase, we need to engage with you in a deeper way."

Well it seems like this is good news for those of us who butter our bread with working in the digital space. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, in the past 6 months online advertising has already hit the $10 billion mark. That's up 27% from last year! Intel spends about $300 million on its worldwide advertising.

According to a ZenithOptimedia report released last week, there are more positives on the horizon for 2008:

--Online video and local search will drive 30% growth in Internet ad expenditures this year -- nine times faster than the rest of the ad market.

--The US downgraded to 2.5% growth in 2007 from 3.3% after credit squeeze and continued slump in housing market.

--Total online ad sales growth is said to be at 29.9% this year

No doubt we'll start seeing more companies shifting dollars online. Nowadays it seems like a media mix is also a sliding landscape. To this writer, the brands that will lead will be the ones that do a deep dive into true multiplatform advertising, with kick-ass creative. What do you think?"