Advertising, ad campaigns, ad agencies, and the people that make it happen

Interesting report from Blackfriars Communications indicating that both online and offline spending were up in the third quarter of 2006, with the bulk of that spending going to traditional media (41%). Online ads accounted for roughly 8% of the ad spend, a gain of about 2%. However the entire online budget (advertising, email and websites) accounted for 18% of the ad spend. But the really interesting part was this quote from Carl Howe, a principal of Blackfriars… "While firms budgeted large amounts for marketing in 2006, they just didn't spend those budgets. With executive attitudes toward marketing faltering, businesses fell back on tried and true media types that they could defend." I wonder if that’s a reflection on the conservative/traditional approach many marketers still take to media, in spite of their much quoted embrace of and enthusiasm for, all kinds of New Media? Most worrying for agencies and the media was Blackfriars closing remarks… “Average marketing spending in Q3 was only 74% of what it was in 2005. That's not good. We further don't expect much improvement when we get the Q4 actual spending numbers, meaning that 2006 will likely be the worst year for marketing spending in the three years we've been collecting data.” Sounds a bit ominous to me!

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