Digital advertising spend is up 16.6 per cent to £3.5 billion for the first half of 2014, with mobile video ad spend tripling, according to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau UK Digital Adspend report.
The report conducted by PwC shows Britain’s increasing appetite for watching video content on computers, tablets and mobile phones which helped drive digital advertising spend.
Video advertising on the internet and mobile phones grew by 59% year-on-year to £202 million in the first half of 2014. Mobile video advertising, alone, grew 196% to £63.9 million and is now the fastest growing digital ad format.
“Mobile’s share of the digital ad pie has tripled in two years, accounting for a fifth of total spend – rising to nearly a third of display and over half of social media ads,” says Dan Bunyan, manager at PwC. “As 4G becomes more prevalent and phone screens become larger, it will play an even bigger role in driving digital ad spend – particularly video.”
IAB, chief strategy officer Tim Elkington said a third of online viewers, particularly 35-44 year olds, are watching more TV, films and clips online than a year ago.
“Average weekly viewing online amounts to 25 videos, 4-5 TV episodes and one film but what’s most interesting is that watching video on connected devices is becoming an increasingly social activity, like traditional TV. Half of people watching TV, films or video clips online do so with family members and three in ten watch with friends.”
Accompanying online YouGov data reveals 73%¹ of Britons online who own an internet-enabled device watched TV programmes online in the last six months, 72% watched short online video clips and 59% watched films online.
Those watching TV online average 2 hours 35 minutes a week doing so, compared to 1 hour 50 minutes for online film viewers and 51 minutes for video clip viewers.
