More evidence the money is moving

March 26, 2008 by Dave Haynes

Media research house PQ Media has released a report and forecast on alternative media spending in the US, and identifies digital out of home as one of the hot growth areas.

Spending on alternative media, says a company press release, jumped 22.0% to $73.43 billion in 2007 and is expected to continue its rapid ascension in 2008 despite a slowing economy, as brand marketers scramble to stay in step with a rapidly changing media landscape, according to research released today by PQ Media, the leading provider of media econometrics.

Alternative media spending grew at a compound annual rate of 21.7% from 2002 to 2007, as brand marketers increasingly turned to alternative advertising and marketing strategies to offset challenges posed by new technology, changing consumer behaviors, media fragmentation and multitasking, and growing demand for improved return-on-investment metrics, according to the PQ Media Alternative Media Forecast: 2008-2012. Alternative media, including 18 digital and non-traditional media segments, accounted for 16.1% of total advertising and marketing spending in 2007, up from only 7.9% in 2002.

PQ Media expects the momentum to continue in 2008 and through the rest of the decade as brand marketers seek new ways to deal with the evolving media landscape. Total spending on alternative media is forecast to grow 20.2% to $88.24 billion in 2008 and post compound annual growth of 17.0% in the 2007-2012 period, reaching $160.82 billion, according to the PQ Media Alternative Media Forecast: 2008-2012, the first source ever to define, structure, size and forecast the direction of the comprehensive digital and alternative media sector. Alternative media is forecast to represent 26.6% of total U.S. advertising and marketing spending in 2012.

“By 2012, we anticipate one out of every four dollars spent on advertising and marketing will be earmarked for alternative media,” said Patrick Quinn, President and CEO of PQ Media. “Alternative advertising and marketing media are driving a new media order that presents vast opportunities for industry stakeholders, but also key challenges for some of the fastest-growing digital media segments. Technological advances have led to critical changes in consumer behaviors and media usage patterns, which have pushed the advertising and marketing ecosystems into a seminal period of transition. Driven by these market forces, brand marketers are seeking new strategies to connect with consumers through engaging means in captive locations, while at the same time providing proof-of-performance metrics. This confluence of trends is fueling the migration of dollars to alternative media.”

The reports lumps digital out of home in with local pay TV, video-on-demand (VOD), interactive TV (ITV), digital video recorder (DVR) advertising, video game & home video advertising, and satellite radio advertising, so there are no breakout numbers at least in the press release.

There may be those numbers in the full report, so if you have $1,295 burning a hole in your pocket, find out and let me know.