TV Spot Market

TV ad spending growth rates in the US continue to outpace the aggregate of all media, according to MarketingCharts analysis of figures both provided and publicly released by Kantar Media. This article examines: how TV ad spending has continued to grow in the US despite a nearly saturated audience; why TV remains the prime medium for ad spending; the segments that are growing most rapidly; and projected TV ad spending growth rates up to 2016. Read more »

US ad spending increased by 2% year-over-year in Q4 2012, and by 3% for the full year to reach $139.5 billion, per the latest figures from Kantar Media. The figures may actually underestimate growth, as Kantar's online spending estimates only include display advertising, which the report says declined by 3% for the year. (Given the recent growth trajectory of online ad spending - mainly fueled by search - it's more likely that online ad spending growth was somewhere in the double digits last year.) Read more »

Agencies may be seeing a changing media mix, but a new report confirms that TV still commands the lion's share of advertising dollars. According to the data, provided to MediadailyNews by Standard Media Index (SMI), the major agency holding companies spent 62.4% of their advertising dollars on TV in 2012. The data comes from the processing systems of 4 of the 6 major holding companies, lending it an authority not seen in other survey-based research. Read more »

Ace Metrix has released its list of the top TV brand advertisers and ads of 2012, revealing that the year "was marked by creative strategies that stressed innovation while embracing cause and humor." Notably, many of the top brands by category were able to achieve a difficult feat: airing high quantities of creative while keeping the quality ahead of the competition. Such was the case for brands like Best Buy, which topped the retail category, and Samsung, which topped the tech category while producing more than 3 times as much new creative as Apple. Read more »

After releasing its top TV programs of the year, Nielsen has now issued its lists of most liked new commercials, best recalled branded integrations in scripted shows, and top advertising categories and advertisers. According to the blog post, the best-liked new commercials of the year proved that "audience-appropriate humor, an ownable creative concept and a relatable, emotional appeal" are what drove engagement with viewers. Read more »

Election day is here, and it brings with it an onslaught of studies pitting the candidates head-to-head across a variety of media and metrics, as well as a few looks at voter behavior in the lead-up to today's vote. (Stay tuned for the inevitable post-election study explaining how Twitter predicted the winner.) To begin, a look at some figures on internet presence, put together by WordStream, which give President Obama the lead over Governor Romney by a significant margin. Read more »

The onslaught of political advertising has left many non-political media buyers deciding to take a back seat until after the election, finds STRATA in the latest installment of its quarterly survey of leading advertising agencies. 47% of non-political ad buyers polled said their clients are waiting until after the election to advertise so as to avoid competing with political ad buys. That's a sea change from Q2, when just 18% of non-political media buyers said the same. Read more »

NBC's "Sunday Night Football" commands the highest average price for a 30-second spot, reports Ad Age. Its pricetag of $545,142 for 30 seconds is 60% higher than that of the second-place "American Idol," broadcast on Fox on Wednesday nights. In the 2011-2012 season, "Sunday Night Football" and "American Idol" were about dead even. But while the SNF price jumped from $512,367 last season, "Idol" plunged from $502,900 to $340,825 this year. Read more »

Global advertising spending rose 2.7% year-over-year in the first half of this year (H1), and once again, online advertising revenues grew more quickly than any other medium, details Nielsen in its Global AdView Pulse report. Advertisers upped their investments online by 7.2%, with the developing markets of the Middle East and Africa (+30.3%) and Latin America (+20.6%) in particular pouring more money into online advertising. The online ad spend figures are based solely on display ads. Read more »

US advertising spending increased 0.9% year-over-year in Q2 to reach $34.4 billion, slowing from Q1's 2.9% year-over-year increase, according to September 2012 figures from Kantar Media. For the first half of the year, expenditures increased by 1.9% to $67.1 billion. (Online spending estimates only include display advertising). Read more »