Follow the money dep't: Outdoor up 9% in US in 2010

March 21, 2011 by Dave Haynes

Research firm Kantar Media has released new figures on US ad spend that show what categories are growing, shrinking or just kinda staying the same.

The research shows outdoor grew 9.6% year on year from 2009 to 2010, the third biggest category groth. It does not break down in OOH vs Digital OOH.

Poached from the release:

Measured Ad Spending By Advertiser
Spending among the ten largest advertisers in 2010 reached $16,345.8 million, a 3.7 percent increase compared to last year. Among the Top 100 marketers, a diversified group accounting for close to one-half of all measured ad expenditures, investments climbed 8.8 percent.

For the eighth consecutive year, Procter & Gamble was the top advertiser with spending of $3,123.9 million, up 17.7 percent compared to a year ago.

L’Oreal posted the largest rate of increase among the Top Ten with expenditures soaring 30.6 percent to $1,112.4 million. The company boosted marketing support broadly across its portfolio of mass market and prestige cosmetics brands.

Among auto manufacturers, Ford Motor upped its total ad budgets by 11.1 percent to $1,132.2 million. Rival General Motors reduced spending slightly, down 1.3 percent to $2,130.7 million. For both companies, exceptionally high levels of ad support in Q4 2009 timed to the leading edge of the auto sales rebound made for difficult comparisons in Q4 2010 and pulled down the full year growth rates.

AT&T raised expenditures by 12.1 percent, to $2,092.8 million as it continued to expand marketing efforts for its residential and mobile TV services. Verizon Communications trimmed ad spending 15.2 percent to $1,823.2 million.

Significant reductions were seen in the ad budgets of Pfizer (down 11.7 percent to $1,228.7 million) and Johnson & Johnson (down 7.5% to $1,139.7 million).

Measured Ad Spending By Category
Expenditures for the ten largest advertising categories increased 6.5 percent and totaled $74,125.1 million.

Automotive was the leading category in both dollar volume and growth rate, finishing 2010 at $13,026.0 million, up 19.8 percent. Category spending grew almost twice as fast as new vehicle sales (19.8 percent versus 11.1 percent), reflecting a fiercely competitive marketing environment for manufacturers and dealers.

Telecom was the second largest category with 2010 budgets rising a modest 4.0 percent to $8,751.5 million. Lower spending by wireless carriers and satellite TV companies was offset by higher outlays from cable TV service providers.

Package goods advertising remained active at year end as a broad range of manufacturers sought to defend market share against value-priced store brands and generics. Expenditures for Personal Care Products were up 11.7 percent to $6,161.0 million and the Food & Candy category rose 7.1 percent to $6,672.3 million.

Ad spending for Financial Services increased 6.0 percent to $7,689.7 million. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, marketing activity has picked up noticeably for products related to debt (credit cards, consumer loans) while advertising budgets for savings related segments have lagged (investments, retail banking).

Only two of the Top Ten categories experienced year-over-year declines. Direct Response budgets fell by 5.8 percent to $6,143.5 million. Pharmaceutical expenditures dropped 8.2 percent to $4,327.8 million, the lowest dollar amount for this category since 2003.


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