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Big Brand Marketers Still Web Shy

It's a story that's been written before, but it's certainly one that bears repeating-especially when you consider the steady rise of digital amid traditional media's declining ad market: major brands are still not shifting their ad dollars to the Web. Indeed, the top spender on the Internet in the U.S. last year was the University of Phoenix-not exactly a major global brand. The fact that an American university ranks at the top of Internet sponsors highlights a stark reality, says the Washington Post: major U.S. advertisers have (still) not fully embraced the Web.

Case in point: P&G, one of the largest U.S. advertisers, spent less than 2% of its ad budget on the Web last year. "While spending on Internet marketing has been growing dramatically over the past decade, the top 50 or 60 brand marketers are very much underrepresented," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, adding that the industry has grown mostly "by grabbing the low-hanging fruit"-i.e. search and other forms of direct response advertising.

Meanwhile, the largest source of revenue for online content providers is display. These publishers would love to tap into the billions that the likes of P&G have at their disposal, but these marketers have several issues with the Web. For one thing, they're more accustomed to creating and presenting 15-second TV spots or magazine ads. For another, some media buyers think it's more difficult to get precise information about how an ad is performing on the Web than in traditional media.

Read the whole story at The Washington Post »

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