Signs of What’s to Come

The next generation of marketers and advertisers have some strong opinions on where their industry is headed, according to results from a report by the MediaSchool Group. Based on a survey of more than 2,000 students aged 20-25 studying advertising, marketing communications, design, PR and events, the study finds that 70% believe that in 10 years, the marketing landscape will be "dominated" by content marketing and "PR thinking." At that time, advertising's job will be mostly to "entertain" rather than "sell," according to 7 in 10. Recent survey results indicate that American consumers already believe that should be the case. Read more »

For the third consecutive year, YouTube is the channel where most marketers plan on increasing their social media efforts, according to survey results from Social Media Examiner's latest annual "Social Media Marketing Report" [download page].This year, 69% plan to increase their YouTube marketing efforts in the near future, while another 17% plan to maintain current levels, and just 13% don't have any plans to utilize the platform. Last year, 76% planned to increase their YouTube efforts, against 33% who didn't plan any such marketing activities, while the year before, 77% planned to increase their efforts versus 10% who had no YouTube marketing plans. But YouTube adoption has remained flat: it stood at 56% in 2011, 57% in 2012, and is once again at 56% this year. Read more »

70% of brands and 77% of agencies have employed branded content marketing for advertising purposes in the past year, and about two-thirds of each group say that branded content marketing has become very or most important to their marketing mix, according to a MailOnline survey of more than 600 online marketing and advertising executives. With branded content now perceived by brands as being among their most effective branding tactics, 72% report having increased their spending on it in the past year, and 69% plan to pour more money into branded content in the coming year. Read more »

Executives at large companies (more than $500 million in revenues) who rate themselves highly in terms of their capability to use data analytics, deploy applications, and operate APIs are more likely than those who rate themselves poorly in those capabilities to have confidence in their future competitive position, according to [pdf] results from an Apigee Institute survey. These top digital performers also are more likely to report having outperformed their competitors in the past year across a range of factors, such as bringing new products to market and customer satisfaction. Read more »

Graduation season is here, and Americans will shell out $4.6 billion to reward high school and college seniors, per results from a survey conducted for the NRF by BIGinsight. Gift-givers will spend about $94 on average, or $49 per recipient, down from last year's $100 average. Unlike other events and holidays tracked by the NRF, which have seen increases in spending this year, total projected spending on graduation gifts this year is down from last year's forecast of $4.7 billion. Read more »

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 »

Consumers continue to spend more and more online, as evidenced by the latest figures from comScore showing that Q1 represented the 14th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in retail e-commerce spending. In general, retailers feel that future retail growth will come primarily from digital channels, not stores, with 40% agreeing with that sentiment, versus 29% disagreeing, per results from a new RSR Research survey [download page]. However, top-performing retailers aren't as convinced: just 6% "strongly agree" that digital will be the primary driver of future growth, compared to 11% of respondents on average. Read more »

The mobile marketing ecosystem is demonstrating rapid growth, with $6.7 billion spent by client-side marketers and retailers in 2012, according to [download page] a study commissioned by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and conducted by researchers at Columbia University. That investment should grow to $10.5 billion this year before ballooning to $19.8 billion in 2015, with close to half of that ($9.2 billion) coming from mobile advertising alone. Read more »

B2B publishers, especially larger publishers with more than $5M in annual revenues, continue to have difficulty diversifying their revenue sources away from print advertising, finds FOLIO: magazine in its latest annual B2B CEO survey. Print advertising was the dominant source of revenue for the larger publishers last year, at 48% share, which actually represents a small increase from 47% in 2011. E-media (20% from 17%) and events (17% from 14%) are the only other sources contributing double-digit share of revenues. Read more »

75% of ad agencies responding to a BrightRoll survey believe that video is equally or more effective than TV, and that's up from 64% who believed that to be the case in last year's survey, according to a new BrightRoll report [download page]. Even more respondents (91%) believe that digital video measures up well with display, although they're less convinced about its effectiveness compared to social media (68%), search (52%) and direct response (45%). The most important aspect of video advertising to clients is its targeting capabilities, according to 45% of respondents, with reach (27%) also valuable. Read more »