Chairman of IAB Europe: Increase standardization of formats, marketers look for simplicity

According to Alain Heureux, the financial crisis has slowed down the growth pace of online advertising market in Europe, but the industry continued to develop.

“Most mature markets are still growing between 4-8% compared to 2009, while less Less developed or emerging markets are still on double digit growth”, said Alain Heureux (photo).

The financial crisis has led to an increase in share of spending for digital due to the declining traditional media.

What was the positive side of the financial crisis? “Naturally due to obsession on measurability during recession, search and targeting have grown heavily underlining the power of direct response from our platforms. The main trends were observed in video advertising as it attracted new advertisers, in targeting delivering efficiency and relevancy and consumer engagement in social media”, Alain Heureux explained.

Among the solutions proposed by the chairman of IAB Europe to overcome the difficult environment is to emphasize the opportunities that digital platforms can provide to the brand.

“We must prove to marketers that emotions, brand preference, top of mind and share of voice are achievable online”, Heureux added.

According to his estimates, online advertising market in Europe including Russia is likely to be over 15bln €. Online ad industry in Europe stood at €12.9bln last year, up 20% from 2007, despite the financial crisis.

Online advertising market in Slovenia, at its “resilience test”

Online advertising market in Slovenia that stood at €20million last year, according to a report compiled by IAB Europe and PricewaterhouseCoopers, slowed down its growth pace this year, due to financial crisis. “I would say that it is “hanging on”. We have had a slow start of the year, but I think that we will be able to get back on track until the end of the year”, said Zoran Savin, chairman of IAB Slovenia.

Over the last 12 months, the failure of Lehman Brothers has certainly changed the media spend picture newspapers falling fast and TV staying high and it has brought big attention to result.

In trend coming to shape in Slovenian online advertising industry was marketers’ will to incorporate social media marketing in the marketing mix.

“People began to realize the potential of online and other interactive platforms. They started to experiment more and tried to understand the results and evaluate constantly”, said Zoran Savin.

Currently, the market fell to 2007 levels due to the financial crisis, the head of IAB Slovenia said, but by the end of the year it could increase to 2008 levels.

Online advertising market in Hungary

The financial crisis has affected the online advertising market in Hungary as well, but the impact wasn’t as large as in other sectors.

Press media showed a very strong income reduction and led to layoffs, and the situation was similar in traditional advertising and media agencies.

“Of course the online media also made some staff redundancies, but mostly them just a part of reorganization process and come from the bad structures. Considering the display advertising, the total online advertising spending has reduced with a few percent but the spending in the SEO has increased dynamically, that’s why the total online ad market shows 5-10% growth by the end of the year. As an interesting experience I mention that the tenders changed very quickly. The online was the only one channel, where prices / numbers have changed day to day (for example the interest rate)”, said the representatives of Carnation Hungary.

“The online became the winning channel after the crisis”, representatives of Carnation Hungary added. Even of the market didn’t pass the previous 40% growth, the online market continued to grow, and is expected to reach €81-85mln this year. In 2008, the market stood at €78mln, according to IAB Hungary. In 2010, it could increase by 10-20%.

“The collective communication of this industry is very important, and we have to emphasize the advantages for example target, personal interaction with the customers, KPI, measurements and optimization. We have to strengthen the role of the online channel in the media: the online is an efficient tool still in crisis, more efficient than other options”, representatives of Carnation Hungary said.