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.
Some of the results (such as almost half of the spend being on digital) might be due to the respondent sample: nearly half of the respondents represent products or services geared to high net-worth audiences, and 43% of those target high-income consumers. The researchers note that those brands targeting high-income consumers expected to spend more than twice as much on video and close to twice as much on rich media as mass-market brands. Last year, a separate report from Martini Media, conducted with Digiday, revealed that 43% of agency respondents reported that their about 31% of their budgets to digitalluxury clients were moving into digital advertising more rapidly than mass market brands, and another third of agencies believed those brands were moving into digital at the same pace.
So what’s the allure of digital? According to Martini Media’s most recent study, conducted in association with iMedia, UK marketers are increasingly seeing digital’s worth as a branding medium. 8 in 10 believe that digital is effective for building brand favorability, 71% believe it helps them build positive brand association, and 6 in 10 feel that digital helps build awareness of specific products and services.
That move towards online branding mirrors recent survey results from Vizu, in which 61% of marketers said they are re-allocating their online budgets away from direct response to brand advertising initiatives.
Other Findings:
- 65% of Martini Media survey respondents agree that it’s worth paying premium CPMs for specific sites to ensure they reach their audience.
- 89% agree that they can reach their target across sites via data and targeting.
- 84% agree that they can research consumers by aggregating niche sites to target their ideal audience.
- 66% consider online video to be as effective as TV for building brand awareness.
- 65% will use some form of online video this year.
- 75% believe high impact ads can break through as much as TV and print.
About the Data: The study was conducted in March and April 2013 among 226 marketing professionals, including brand advertisers (43%) and agencies (57%).
