How taken with mobile advertising are marketers in the UK?
Twenty percent worth — at least for now — and the percentage is bound to grow.
That’s the takeaway from a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and partner researcher PwC. The survey data showed that spending on digital advertising in the UK hit £3.46 billion in the first six months of 2014 – an increase of 16.6 per cent YOY.
Mobile spending is up from the 14 percent it garnered last year. And a whole lot of that advertising is native content.
“It’s imperative now, more than ever, for brand marketers to consider the messages we are communicating and where and when those messages are being consumed,” noted Owen Sagness, Microsoft UK general manager for advertising and online. “In 2014, ‘context is king’ – it’s vital to reach consumers where they are, on any screen, at any time, with the right message that encourages brand engagement. We are seeing the appetite for this continue to grow with native advertising accounting for 21 per cent of digital ad spend in the first half of 2014.”
True, the largest share of spend on mobile is still display advertising (£315.7 million). But £209.7 million of this came from social media, where mobile makes up 53 per cent of all spend, and £63.9m from video ads – the single fastest growing ad format, up 196 per cent year-on-year, according to Mobile Marketing Magazine.
But UK marketers are resolved to make hay in the increasingly mobile “cross-screen world.”