Online Take Predicted to Rise Above $2.6 billion

20th August, 2011

Whilst all media are hurting in a weak advertising market, online is posting good results. With online advertising growing 9 per cent in the second quarter compared with the first, and by 19 per cent compared with the same period last year.

In the three months to June 30 online advertising in Australia was worth $655 million, according to a survey commissioned by an industry body, Interactive Advertising Bureau Australia, and it is now on track to exceed expectations of a $2.6 billion year.

The report author, PricewaterhouseCoopers, expects online advertising to become Australia's largest advertising sector by revenue in 2014, overtaking both newspapers, now in second place, and free-to-air television, the market leader.

It found finance, computer and car companies were the largest industries in online display advertising and real estate the largest for online classifieds.

But IAB's chief executive, Paul Fisher, said the growth story was from retail, "despite, or perhaps because of the many reported challenges facing the industry''.

Part of Mr Fisher's job is to spruik his industry, a task helped by the figures, and he used them to call on grocers and governments to redirect their spending.

Groceries are part of the sector known as fast moving consumer goods, which Mr Fisher said had a ''very disappointing'' presence online, and one which fell; its proportion of online display advertising was 5.5 per cent, down half a percentage point on last year.

Mr Fisher said governments should be part of the action, too. ''With increasingly hard to reach demographics and the many communications challenges faced by the federal and state governments, there needs to be an increased investment in interactive advertising,'' he said.

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Megan Brownlow, Executive Director PricewaterhouseCooper and Editor of Entertainment & Media Outlook 2010-2014 discusses the future of magazines, as well as the growth of the advertising market in Australia, structural challenges of the print industry and the impact of the internet on advertising

Source: Mediabiz