• by Joe Mandese , November 16, 2005

U.S. marketers appear to have fully made the transition to one new medium--online advertising--but now dread the influx of a wide array of even newer media on their advertising and marketing plans. That is among the chief conclusions of the 2005 edition of an annual survey of ad industry leaders released Tuesday by the American Advertising Federation. The survey of 75 industry leaders, compiled by the Atlantic Media Co., estimates they will spend nearly a fifth of their overall advertising budget--18.7 percent--for online advertising in 2006, a far greater percentage than most industry tracking studies would have predicted. For 2007, the ad execs project investing an average of 17 percent of their ad budgets on online advertising.

While they've embraced one new medium, the executives said they remained guarded about other, newer forms of media, especially blogs, podcasts and Web-enabled cell phones, which they described as still being relatively weak advertising vehicles despite all the hype surrounding them.

"We are seeing two industries today--traditional industry is recovering slowly or going sideways, while new digital/online industry is growing and expanding very quickly," said one agency respondent, adding, "The only issue is if the traditional industry can take advantage of this growth."

Asked to rate the effectiveness of new media as advertising vehicles on a five-point scale with five being most effective, blogs garnered an average score of 2.9, followed by 2.8 for Web-enabled cell phones, and a 2.6 for podcasts.

Among the "newer" uses of media, executives rated Target's single sponsorship of a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine, a stunt that generated controversy in editorial circles, but captivated attention across the industry, as the most effective "non-traditional" tactic.

The survey, the third annual conducted by the AAF, indicates that the majority of respondents believe the industry is recovering, though many (54 percent) said it was still growing "slowly."

Apple's iPod campaign was deemed the "most successful" during 2004-05, followed by Burger King's and Target's. Asked to name the industry leader they admire the most, only one media agency executive--Starcom chief Renetta McCann--was cited.