Streaming video advertising will see continued big growth -- increasing more than 60% to $5.6 billion next year. The Williamsburg, Va.- based media researcher, Borrell Associates, says one of the keys to this continuing strong growth is less-expensive video tools, which can be used by small advertisers. It says two of every five video ad dollars will come from local advertisers next year, according to one report. Overall, online advertising will continue to outpace the U.S. ad market as a whole. Borrell says local online ad spending will gain 14% in 2011, to $51.9 billion from $45.6 billion this year. Targeted display advertising is expected to see a 60% increase to $10.9 billion overall. U.S. advertising spending will inch up less than 5% in 2011 to $238.6 billion. Just looking at local online spending, Borrell projects a gain in 2011 of 17.5%, to $16.1 billion from $13.7 billion in 2010. It says run-of-site display spending will decline nearly 14% to $8.2 billion next year for both local and national. Local run-of-site ads are estimated to decrease only 3% next year. National paid-search spending will sink 11% -- due to lower pricing and churn. On the other hand, local advertisers will increase paid-search revenues by 10%. Email ad revenues will grow 9% to $16.0 billion for national and local advertisers. National email marketers are contributing a major part of this growth. Online couponing will contribute strongly to online promotions, growing 10% of 2010 totals to land $24 billion next year. Online couponing will climb 14% to $9.1 billion in 2011.
With the trend of Internet-enabled TVs on the rise, TiVo now says it has become the first TV measurement company to calculate and analyze broadband and TV consumption on television sets. Through its Stop||Watch ratings service, TiVo says it will measure traditional linear television and broadband consumption from traditional television set usage. TiVo says this will help marketers, networks and content providers reach a deeper level of TV viewing behavior beyond ordinary demographics. Next month, it will begin tracking how much time users spend watching Web content on their TV sets alongside regular TV shows. Such information provides advertisers and content producers with a better idea of users' viewing habits. Subscribers to TiVo's set-top box can watch traditional television, as well as stream online content from Netflix, YouTube and other services to their TV sets. Elissa Lee, vice president of TiVo Audience Research and Measurement, stated: "The ability to see far beyond just simple, stagnant demographics and use the power of our second-by-second set-top box data to measure the percentage of TiVo households watching traditional TV vs. streaming and downloaded video content over a given time is a true game-changer for the media industry." She added that it will "become ever more valuable as the convergence of Internet content to the TV becomes increasingly more prevalent." The media measurement company said it will begin offering combined traditional linear TV viewing and broadband consumption on the TV starting next month. The new data heightens the rivalry between TiVo and Nielsen. The growth of Internet-enabled TVs is expected to hit around 27.7 million units in 2010 -- a higher and faster level than 3D TV sets, which is estimated to reach 4.2 million this year.
There may be debate about the level of cord-cutting -- pundits are all over the map -- regarding how often Hulu users hook up their computers to massive flat screens. But a new report shows a decline, albeit slight, in video customers of cable/satellite/telco TV providers in the second quarter. There was a combined drop of 216,000 from this year's first quarter to the recent April-June period, according to SNL Kagan, which called it the "worst performance on record" period-to-period. That may be partly due to college students who are home for the summer. Still, in the same period a year ago, there was a 378,000 increase. According to a meld of Kagan and Nielsen figures, 87% of American homes (100.1 million) receive video service from one of the multichannel video programmer distributors (MVPDs). Sharp declines in video subscribers among Comcast (679,000) and Time Warner Cable (300,000), the two largest cable operators, led to much of the drop. Dish Network lost 19,000 net subscribers. AT&T's U-verse (209,000), Verizon's FiOS (174,000) and DirecTV (100,000) posted gains. Cable operators' share of the video marketplace now stands at 61%, with telco TV gaining to 6% and satellite holding steady with the remaining customer base. Kagan analyst Mariam Rondeli stated that cord-cutting, or so-called over-the-top usage, is "tempting to point to" as contributors to the subscriber decline. But Rondeli says "economic factors, such as low housing formation and a high unemployment rate," were the principal drivers. Also, the digital transition in the April-June quarter in 2009 may have led to a bump in subscribers that didn't appear in 2010.
The out-of-home advertising industry saw total revenues increase 3.6% to $1.88 billion in the second quarter of 2010, according to new figures from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. This is the first year-over-year gain since the second quarter of 2008, when revenue grew 1.7%, and the biggest gain since the fourth quarter of 2007, when it grew 6%. The medium's second-quarter results also exceed estimates for the year-over-year increase in total ad spending, predicted by Magna to rise 2% in the second quarter of 2010. Better still, the recovery appears to be gaining momentum, with monthly revenues up 7.1% in June, according to OAAA President and CEO Nancy Fletcher. OAAA executives attributed the medium's success, in part, to the adoption of new industry-wide measurement standards promulgated by the Traffic Audit Bureau, with input from major OOH advertising companies, media buyers and advertising clients. The TAB's "Eyes-on" standards provide a metric based on the audience's likelihood to see signage, based partly on visibility and travel surveys conducted with drivers and pedestrians. The medium is also getting a boost from the rapid growth of digital out-of-home advertising. PQ Media predicts that total ad spending on DO networks will jump from $2.47 billion in 2009 to $3.8 billion in 2014, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.4%. Stephen Freitas, OAAA's chief marketing officer, stated that "out-of-home companies invested in infrastructure and their medium and what you are seeing now are the dividends from that investment."
WPP Group's MediaCom said it had a new head of its massive DirecTV account, who will also oversee direct-response advertising at the agency. Jason Lim joins from Halogen Response Media. Lim will hold the newly created post of managing partner, director of direct-response marketing. Halogen is part of Starcom MediaVest, and he was a senior vice president there, overseeing accounts in the DR arena such as CapitalOne and Comcast, a DirecTV competitor. Leadership of the DirecTV account includes overseeing heavy spending on high-profile sportscasts as the satellite provider plugs its "NFL Sunday Ticket." It also trumpets its HD lineup and has a growing 3D one. MediaCom said Lim will work with DR operations at GroupM, the WPP unit that serves as a central nervous system for four agencies. GroupM Direct is led by Marion Murphy, who is president. AT MediaCom, he will report to Euan Jarvie, the U.S. COO. "Following the rising demand for increased ROI and accountability, direct-response advertising is a growing area of importance for the industry," stated MediaCom North American CEO Doug Checkeris, who cited an effort to bring MediaCom DR expertise from abroad to the U.S. Lim has also worked at ZPFM, OgilvyOne Worldwide and D'Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles.
The boundary between outdoor advertising and mobile media is becoming increasingly blurry, as players from both sides experiment with strategies that integrate elements of each. This week brings the unveiling of a partnership between Clear Channel Airports -- which specializes in place-based advertising targeting air travelers -- and Geodelic, which incorporates location service technology into mobile apps, to produce FLYsmart, a free location-based app for air travelers. The new service shows users nearby retailers, restaurants and other destinations. FLYsmart lets them find services and amenities in terminals, including newsstands, gift shops and restaurants. The app also offers maps of terminal concourses, live feeds of arrival and departure information and information for hotels and services around the airport. The app is currently available for Apple iPhones; versions for Android and BlackBerrry smartphones should be available later this year. The launch airports include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago's O'Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco and Seattle. Smaller airports will come online each week. Ron Cooper, CEO of Clear Channel Outdoor, stated: "By leveraging our vast airports network, latest digital technologies and the power of mobility, we're creating compelling and exciting ways for brands to engage and reach new audiences." Airports are hot spots in the convergence of mobile, out-of-home and Internet advertising. Earlier this summer, IBM launched an ad campaign -- running through Sept. 24 -- on the theme of "Smarter Cities," including a large interactive display at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Installed in American Airlines Terminal 8, the display will be visible to many of the roughly 700,000 airline passengers per month served by American at JFK. The unit also features a rotating ticker with a text to mobile call to action feature. Two years ago, JetBlue installed interactive video screens at the gates of its new terminal at New York's JFK Airport, which allow travelers to order food for delivery from airport dining options if they can't leave the gate. Overall, there are 200 such screens around Terminal 5 in the JetBlue digital network, called Re:vive. It was designed by New York's Deepend for OTG Management.