Online advertising poised to pass radio

The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s figures - compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers - show online advertising has grown by 76% on the same period last year, reaching a total of £468.8m spent online for the year to June 30 2004. The figures also reveal that the market share of online advertising hit 3.24% of all UK adspend in first half 2004. According to the IAB, this is just half a percent away from the 3.7% attributed to radio advertising, and well past cinema, making it 86% the size of radio. The IAB said it was now confident that online advertising was set to over-take radio in February 2007. The IAB said the the quarterly growth rate also revealed a leap in spend of 22.9% between the fourth quarter of 2003 (£107.5m) and the first quarter this year (£132.1m) showing the new found confidence in online amongst marketers. Marketers have invested £266.8m in the medium in the first half of this year. The IAB said it was confident that the figure will cross the half-billion mark before the end of the year. Internet advertising, the fastest-growing advertising medium, has grown for the last eight consecutive quarters. Danny Meadows-Klue, chief executive of the IAB, said: “It’s certainly great news for online but we really feel it reflects a much deeper change in the marketing industry.” Paul Pilkington, Director, Entertainment and Media Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "This is exceptional growth. Online is clearly setting new records, growing its market share faster than any advertising sector." The IAB put the 76% growth down to people spending more time online, increased creativity in campaigns, greater standardisation of formats, and greater confidence amongst marketers. According to Forrester Research, the internet has already overtaken press and radio in its importance and use among those with access. Total UK advertising expenditure rose 5.7% to £3,696m in the second quarter of 2004, according to the Advertising Association. The IAB first appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1997 to track the size of the online ad market by measuring the recorded revenues reported by the finance departments of online media owners. Further research findings are due of 29th October. The IAB Leadership Council consists of AOL, Ask Jeeves, Associated New Media, CNet, Google, The Guardian, Haymarket, Lycos, MSN, Overture, 24/7 RealMedia, Tiscali, ValueClick, Wanadoo and Yahoo.