Out Of Home Leads US Media Spend Growth

January 19, 2012 by Dave Haynes

Outdoor advertising “seems” to be the bucket most often associated with media spend for digital out of home, and if that is really the case, then it’s a good bucket to be in these days.

Measured ad spend for OOH grew at three times the rate of any any other medium during the first three quarters of 2011, according to December 2011 data from Kantar Media.  Outdoor spending was up 8.6% for the year and though slowed in Q3, still up 3.2%.

That’s triple that of the next healthiest categories, online and TV. The category getting hammered is the Free Standing Insert business, aka coupon inserts in newspapers. That daily deals phenomenon will have a lot to do with that. Newspapers, already wheezing on their own, rely heavily for revenue from the newspaper insert business. Ouch. Ouch.

Reports MarketingCharts:

Total US advertising expenditures in the first 9 months of 2011 increased 1.5% from the previous year, finishing the period at $104.7 billion, according to December 2011 data from Kantar Media. Spending growth slowed during Q3, up 0.4% compared to 2010, after rising 4.1% in Q1 and 2.8% in Q2.

Spending among the 10 largest advertisers in the first 9 months of 2011 was $11.8 billion, representing a 1.4% decline compared to the previous year. Procter & Gamble maintained its top-ranked position with spending of $2.1 billion through September, down 5.6% compared to 2010, although its Q3 spending was flat compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, expenditures for the 10 largest categories grew 3.1% in the first 9 months of 2011, to $59.5 billion. For Q3, the aggregate increase was 1.8%, although quarterly growth rates for 7 of the 10 categories trailed their year-to-date average. Automotive was the top category with $9.9 billion of spending during the 9-month period, up 7% from 2010. However, the bulk of the gain came early in the year, and from April through September automotive budgets grew just 1%.

Most forms of TV displayed spending gains in Q3 2011: expenditures on cable networks rose 6.5% during Q3, while year-to-date outlays grew 9.9%. Network TV registered its first quarterly gain of the year, as Q3 expenditures inched up 0.2%, although year-to-date expenditures remained down 5.7%. Kantar insight suggests higher budgets from movie studios and consumer package goods marketers accounted for the Q3 increase for network TV, while the year-to-date decline can be attributed to the loss of marquee college football and basketball programming to cable networks in Q1.