• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, July 9, 2014

According to a 2014 Millward Brown Digital Study, current digital advertising spending trends show that digital marketers fairly evenly allocate budgets across ad formats. However, the majority of digital marketers say that digital advertising hasn’t lived up to its promise and feel that branding ads bought via programmatic methods raise concerns. They are searching for the best way to connect with consumers on an emotional level to bridge the delta between the branding promise of digital and real-world success.

While almost 60% of digital advertising dollars this year have a direct response objective, per eMarketer, who also expects that by 2017, digital advertising dollars will be almost equally split between branding and direct response objectives. Marketers do indeed indicate a strong shift from direct response to branding, but, as a new study from Millward Brown Digital attests, digital marketers aren’t yet confident that digital is delivering as a branding vehicle.

Only 50% of marketers say they somewhat/strongly agree with this statement: “Digital held promise for brand marketers, but for all its promise, it has never delivered as a branding vehicle.”

Despite that, the flow of money to digital branding ads continues. Some 94% said they will increase their digital branding ad budgets in the next year; 42% will increase their spending by more than 20%.

How Much Digital Marketers Will Increase Their Digital Branding Ad Budgets In The Next Year:

• 7% will increase it more than 51%
• 7% will increase it by 41-50%
• 11% will increase it by 31-40%
• 18% will increase it by 21-30%
• 34% will increase it by 11-20%
• 18% will increase it by less than 10%
• 2% don’t know if they will increase it
• 2% won’t increase it

Source: Millward Brown Digital, June 2014The study reports the digital marketers’ annual budgets for all digital ad spending.

The report identifies the digital ad formats Digital marketers utilize. Only 37% run emotionally targeted in-game branding ads. This includes when a player gets a new high score or needs help. Currently, the most popular ad formats used by respondents are:

The study specifically questioned respondents on the digital ad formats that are most effective in meeting their branding objectives. The report says it’s not surprising that social ads top that list, since advertisers have said that branding is the main goal of social ads. For the purposes of this study, then, respondents are noting their experience with branding objectives.

A majority of respondents said that their branding objectives are promoting their products or services, increasing purchase intent, and promoting their website, unique landing page or mobile/tablet app.

Finally, according to the report, marketers point out their greatest challenges when developing and deploying digital advertising campaigns.

And, among the greatest challenges when developing and deploying digital advertising campaigns bought through ad exchanges or agency trading desks, known as programmatic ad buying, 37% of respondents start with “banner blindness” as a concern when buying branding ads programmatically.

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