Global Marketers Spent Heavily On Traditional Media In 2012

Market researcher Nielsen have revealed that, despite the explosive growth in digital marketing through social media and mobile communications, traditional media channels are still popular with industry professionals across the globe and it remains a promising source of revenue growth.

Nielsen found that the TV accounted for the bulk of global marketers’ advertising budgets, recording a 3.4% uptick in marketing spend to reach $350 billion. Cinema, radio and outdoor advertising spend also exhibited growth, which was even above the overall 3.2% increase in global marketing expenditure registered in 2012. Cinema ad spend, in particular, kept expanding each quarter throughout the year, contributing to an annual growth rate of 5.8% for the entire 2012. Radio ad spend rose by 6.1% while outdoor media saw an increase of 7.7%. Magazines and newspapers exhibited slight drops of 1.6% and 0.2%, but still represented more than a quarter of global ad spending.

Not surprisingly, display Internet advertising, although measured in a smaller number of countries, was the fastest growing marketing channel, going up by 9.9% last year. In Latin America, investments in this media category surged 21.2%, while Europe scored a strong 7.4% increase despite the unstable economic environment.

TV attracted the largest portion (62.8%) of global advertising investment in 2012, followed by newspapers with 19.5%. Another 8% of global ad budgets were channelled into magazines, 5.2% into radio and 2.3% into outdoor compared to just 1.9% of Internet-related expenditure.