Nielsen//NetRatings has launched this week its online advertising tracking system AdRelevance. The first report points out that the number of banner advertisements run on European websites has increased by 24%, from 76,375 in November 2003 to 94,939 in November 2004. Germany, France and the UK dominate the top 15 advertisers in Europe in November.
Gabrielle Prior, European Internet Analyst commented (opens .pdf):
“There are now over 163 million Europeans with access to the Internet, representing a significant audience for advertisers. These results indicate a growing confidence in the value of targeting this group of people, and an increasing importance of online in an overall advertising strategy.
Althought we are actually facing an increase in spending in online advertising, we cannot say the numbers are yet relevant. As my previous post on the French advertising market confirms, big brands aren't taking the Internet seriously yet. Maybe only in the United States and in the UK we can talk about online ads being regularly part of the media mix. In the rest of the world (and of Europe in particular) online advertising (and now also mobile marketing) are just for now a "why (not)" option.
Big brands don't invest online, and most advertising agencies aren't yet ready to provide effective interactivity. I'm always impressed by the number of new media agencies you can find in the UK (see New Media Age top 100). In Italy (I talk about it because I live here) you can't name 10 agencies which have a significant portfolio of online works. Will things change in 2005? I hope so, but I don't believe anything relevant will happen. It's about changing a mentality, it's about a shift of power from the TV monopoly to an advertising market with free and fierce competition.
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