Advertising Spending

Internet advertising will reach $64.7 billion next year, accounting for about 15% of global measured advertising spending, according to research from GroupM, the parent company of WPP media agencies Mediaedge:cia and MindShare. Ad spending will increase in both search and mobile, and the continuing ad spending decline in traditional media will increase Web advertising's increase in share, according to the report.

Total measured advertising spending during the first half of this year dropped 14.3% to $60.9 billion, compared with the same period in 2008, according TNS Media Intelligence. The data, released September 16, also reveals ad spending during the second quarter was down 13.9% compared to the same period of last year, representing its fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines.

EDiets.com, working with new advertising agency Karlin & Pimsler, will debut a DRTV campaign this month developed to stand out against the company's better-heeled competitors in the nutritional foods vertical.

E-mail marketing spending will continue to expand at double-digit rates — 18.5% per year — for the next five years, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private equity firm, in its annual Communications Industry Forecast published on August 3. VSS specializes in the information and media industries. VSS puts the total spend for e-mail at $11.9 billion in 2008 and, by 2013, it forecasts e-mail will be a $27.8 billion business.

Worldwide investment in advertising is expected to improve in 2010, but growth is not expected yet, according to media buying giant GroupM. Direct marketing, along with digital media investment, both fare better than traditional media in the agency's outlook.