Advertising spend roars back

So says City AM today, Friday, reporting on the Advertising Association's latest figures.

Paid-for display advertising investment topped £ 17.2bn by the end of 2012, a 2.3% rise on the 2011 figure.

Now it's expected to overtake 2007's record high of £ 17.4bn this year!

What does the New Year hold?

According to the IPA's latest Bellwether Report, researched and published by Markit Economics yesterday, UK adspend grew at an annual rate of 6.6% in 2010, in stark contrast to the forecast reduction of -1.1% one year earlier.

Initial budgets for 2011 are also set higher than 2010 actual spend. Main media budgets are set to fair relatively well, while budgets have also been set higher for direct marketing. In contrast, companies plan to reduce their sales promotion and 'all other' marketing spend in 2011. Growth of spend in internet advertising appears to be slowing.

Despite this relatively heartening news, companies are more pessimistic about the financial outlook for their businesses overall. Those considering prospects to have improved fell from 28% to 25%.

Have mobile, will travel?

Looking through WARC News this morning there were two related stories on mobile 'phone growth in Asia:

Market Research company GfK Asia are reporting that smartphones are becoming the handsets of choice in Asia with one in five mobile 'phones bought in the last quarter being smart purchases.

Of course it's sparked a war among suppliers of operating systems, such as Symbian and long-term growth may have to wait for a market shake-out and common platforms.

However, Informa Telecoms & Media are also expecting massive growth in mobile adspend, from $2.3bn in 2009 to around $24.1bn by 2015, again with much of that growth coming from the chattering masses of India and China.

Analysts here expect advertising expenditure on mobile 'phones in the Asia-Pacific region to be representing over 30% of the market by 2015 with North America at around 18% and Western Europe 8%.

It's good to talk isn't it, but though the language barriers of global marketing have long been addressed, let's hope the multiple languages used by the computers running mobile 'phone operating systems and applications to talk to each other, don't take their place.