GroupM, WPP‘s media investment management company, said online advertising reached $84.8 billion in 2011, confirmed John Wolfe, GroupM’s communications director. The company also expects digital ad spend to reach $98.2 billion in 2012, according to its “This Year, Next year: Interaction 2012” report.
Wolfe said GroupM used data from WPP companies in 20 different countries and in the advertising, public relations and market research sectors to compile the report. The report was released by Adam Smith, GroupM futures director and GroupM’s interaction global CEO Rob Norman.
Internet advertising spending increased 16% compared with the same period last year, the report stated. North America had the biggest overall digital ad spending total, with an estimated $34.5 billion. Asia-Pacific came in second, with digital ad spending totaling $24.8 billion, and Western Europe came in third with $21 billion in total online spending.
The report also showed that the amount of time consumers spent online increased to 19% in 2011, up from 11% in 2006. This is in part due to the number of broadband homes nearly tripling to 500 million worldwide.
“In 2007 we speculated about a world that would be truly social, searchable, mobile addressable and interactive and illuminated by data that could be collected and applied across all marketing functions; in 2012 that is no longer a matter for conjecture,” said Rob Norman, in the report.
