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TV advertisers try to play down their online nemesis

Posted by Christopher Tate September 30th, 2009

On the day that it is announced that Internet advertising has overtaken the Television sector in the UK, questions have been asked about whether or not the term ‘Internet advertising’ is fair to its TV competitor.

In the first six months of this year, a record £1.75 billion was spent on online advertising, compared to £1.6 billion in TV, breaking the stranglehold that television had enjoyed for close to fifty years as the main advertising medium in the country.

So should the numerous types of online advertising income spends (affiliates, paid search, email etc) be lumped together under the umbrella of ‘Internet advertising’? Thinkbox, the UK television marketing body, is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not of this opinion. It’s view is that the maturation of the Internet, along with the diversity of advertising methods, means that it is inaccurate to treat all of these types of advertising as a single entity.

Talking to Mark Sweney, Thinkbox Marketing Director, Lindsey Clay, plays down today’s figures and points to the argument for recording spends separately:

“It is interesting but meaningless to sweep all the money spent on every aspect of online marketing into one big figure and celebrate it. Online marketing spend is made up of many things, including email, classified ads, display ads (including online TV advertising) and, overwhelmingly, search marketing. They should be judged individually.”

However, if this is the case, then surely you would have to treat different types of Television advertising such as commercial breaks, product placement, DRTV and programme sponsorship as separate mediums? One can’t help but feel that this is purely a damage limitation exercise from an industry that is facing major competition and fears that it may lose the battle.

Tags: marketing, online advertising, tv

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