VIA Interaction

Monday, April 17, 2006

The Elephants come to the party

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the big packaged goods companies - beer, toothpaste and paper towels, the stuff you don't typically buy on the Web - are joining everyone else in the shift to online advertising.

These guys were responsible for 11 percent of the $145 billion spent on ads in 2005, but they spent only 1.6 percent of their budgets online. (The Journal reported the overall average online spend by advertisers was 5.8 percent.)

Factors influencing the trend: 15 percent of consumer media time is now spent online, 60 percent of the U.S. has high bandwidth connections, and the big online media companies have developed tools to prove that online advertising influences offline purchases.

The Journal cited Yahoo/A.C. Nielsen's Consumer Direct service, which monitors purchases and Web surfing in 36,000 families. Using the service, Pepsi determined that a promotion last year resulted in double-digit sales growth.

WSJ: Industry Giants Embrace Web Advertising ($)

posted by Tim Beidel at 4/17/2006 01:02:00 PM

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