Online video continues to win ad dollars with its promises of efficiency and targeting, and it is also nabbing money from a softening TV market. The newest media spend report from agency giant
Magna Globalsaid that digital media claimed 30% of the ad market in the U.S. in
2014, or $49 billion. That’s up 15% over the year before. Digital video ad spend increased 39%, playing a big role in fueling overall growth in digital media. In fact, the agency predicts that
digital media spend will reach parity with TV spend by 2016.
Both inflation and drops overall in TV ratings weighed down the TV spend. Magna Global said that TV dollars will fall or be flat this
year, too. That’s because brands are following consumers, and as eyeballs continue to turn to online video and second screens, brands move their money.
Case in point: the automotive
category now devotes about half of its media spend online, according to an advertising report from Borrell Associates. Overall, automotive accounts for
$35.5 billion in ad dollars. More evidence of the shift in consumption came in a new report from FreeWheel
that found that digital video ad views grew 30% in 2014, and digital video views rose 27% last year.
Consider how much habits are changing from only a few years ago. In 2011, about 95% of the
time that U.S. adults spent with video was on TV, and that number dropped to about 83% last year, eMarketer said in a recent report.