Europe

A global shift in marketing budgets from traditional to digital media has been well documented of late, and new survey results from Martini Media suggest that UK marketers are hopping aboard the digital marketing train. 95% of brand advertisers and agencies responding to the survey said they will increase their digital marketing spending this year, with fully 48% of total budgets going to digital media. In particular, 63% will increase their social media investments, 57% their mobile investments, 40% their video investments, and 36% their rich media investments. Read more »

56% of UK consumers say they would never use a company again if faced with a negative customer service experience, according to survey results from NewVoiceMedia. Beyond taking their business elsewhere, 29% would tell their friends and peers about their bad experience, while 19% would post a review online and 14% would complain on social media. Much as they'd punish companies for a bad service experience, though, these consumers would reward them for a positive one. 74% of respondents said a positive customer experience would lead them to be more loyal, and 71% would recommend the company to others. Read more »

North Americans are becoming more confident in spending, according to [download page] results from a Nielsen survey of consumer confidence and spending intentions. In Q1, 42% of respondents (all surveyed online) said they plan to spend on discretionary items this year, up from 36% the previous quarter. Within the US, 23% said they will spend on home improvement and decorating projects, a significant jump from 17% who responded that way in Q4 2012. Additionally, 22% are planning to take a vacation, up 2% quarter-over-quarter, with the same figures applying to out-of-home entertainment spending. Read more »

By 2015, the internet should account for 23.4% of global ad spending, details Zenith Optimedia in a new forecast. That's up more than 5% points from last year's 18%, and comes at the expense of almost all traditional media, none of which are slated to see any growth in share of spending. TV's share will remain flat, at about 40%, as will cinema's (at just 0.6%), but newspapers, magazines, radio, and outdoor will see varying levels of declining share. Print, as expected, will be hardest hit: newspapers and magazines are the only media forecast to see a decline in expenditures. Read more »

44% of Americans say they share or like online content that others have posted on social media and other online sites, according to survey results from Ipsos. While that's right about the global average of 45%, certain segments of the population show a heightened tendency to share content. For example, within the US, women are about 56% more likely than men to say they share or like what others have posted (53% vs. 34%), while 18-34-year-olds are roughly 30% more likely than the average respondent to do so. Read more »

A research study [pdf] conducted in the UK between October 2011 and November 2012 by Tremor Video and the IAB UK has found that video-on-demand (VOD) campaigns can serve as an effective complement to TV advertising, increasing both brand awareness and message association, particularly among light TV viewers. In one campaign, 29% of survey respondents in the UK who watched TV and VOD ads correctly associated the brand with its messages prior to the brand's campaign, with that figure rising to 48% after the brand's 2-month TV and VOD campaign, higher than the 43.6% among those only exposed to the TV ads. Read more »

Among mobile platforms, Apple's iOS leads in monetization performance on the Opera Advertising mobile platform, reports Opera [pdf] in a study covering platform activity in Q1. The iPhone regained the lead in mobile impression share after dropping behind Android in Q4, but its share of revenues fell by about 3% points, to 34.2%. The iPhone's share of revenues stayed ahead of Android, which also skidded by 3% points, to 26.7%. Read more »

Traditional media continue to dominate global advertising spending, and most show no signs of falling off for the time being, according to new data released by Nielsen. TV, which commands the lion's share of global ad budgets, saw a 4.3% increase in expenditures for the year, reaching $350 billion. Cinema, radio, and outdoor saw growth rate above the 3.2% overall average, up 5.8%, 6.1%, and 7.7%, respectively. And while magazines (-1.6%) and newspapers (-0.2%) saw slight declines in spending, they still accounted for more than one-quarter of global spending. Read more »

Marketing budget conditions improved again this month, details Warc [pdf] in its latest Global Marketing Index. The budget component of the index improved to a reading of 52.9 this month from 52.4 in February, representing the 4th consecutive month above the threshold reading of 50, and the 6th consecutive month of improving sentiment. (A score above 50 indicates a generally improving environment, while a score below 50 indicates a generally declining environment.) Read more »

Men appear to be more interested in using their mobile phones than women, according to data released by Kantar Media. In the US, 15.9% of men reported being interested in using their phone to make purchases, compared to 13.3% of women. In the UK, the gap is similar (12% vs. 10.3%), while it's narrower in Australia (9.5% vs. 9.2%) and wider in Germany (5% vs. 1.9%). A separate study released today by Jumio indicates that American men are also more likely to conduct financial activities on their devices than women. Read more »