Well, its the last day of ad:tech New York and its time for brain overload otherwise known as the 1st of a 3 part "Feed Your Brain" series. Data is everywhere and it is quickly becoming the game-changer that enables companies to generate value-added consumer advertising and record breaking ROI. Each Feed Your Brain session features presenters who drill down into the freshest data, research and insights on a variety of related topics and disciplines. Part I tees off with three presentations focusing on the state of the digital economy:

PRESENTERS:
Brian Pitz, Executive Director, Senior Research Analyst, UBS

Brian Jurutka, VP, Telecommunications Solutions, comScore, Inc.

Andrew Rutledge, VP, Publisher Sales, PubMatic

Over the past 2 days, the buzz in almost every presentation has been around mobile and social networking. This remained the case in session 1 of Feed Your Brain as well. Consider some of these facts around consumption on Facebook:

  1. Over 1 MILLION developers on the platform;
  2. 250+ applications have over 1 MILLION users each;
  3. 45MM status updates daily from 30MM users;
  4. Users spend 8 Billion minutes daily on the site;
  5. 2 Billion pieces of content shared on the service (with 5 Billion API calls on a typical day);
  6. 2 Billion photos uploaded a month (20 Billion in total);
  7. During peaks - 1.2 MILLION photos a second are served;
  8. 1.2 MILLION users for every engineer;
  9. In a little over a year, growth from 100MM to 300MM daily active users
  10. The fastest growing group is over 35 years old in the U.S.

Online Advertising Update

Because of these statistics it makes sense that there has been an 11% growth in US Online ad spend as advertisers are following where the traffic is = online! Despite the graph below there is still a disconnect between ad dollars spent online and consumer time spent online.

us-online-advertising

Online ads are still just 9% of total advertising which represents a huge opportunity for advertisers across all verticals. The graph below breaks down total US ad spend by vertical.

 

us-vertical-advertising 
. Advertising dollars should follow audience (20-25% of media time spent online)
. US Online ads should grow at an 11% compound rate from 2009 through 2011
. 1% ad budget shift online equals $2 billion more going to Internet

Mobile Internet Update

mobile-phone-use

  • The Gen Y demographic is leading the charge in both mobile consumption and internet penetration. Among various demographics, mobile phone penetration is equal to or greater than Internet penetration.
  • In emerging markets, the first experience with the Internet will be over the mobile phone
  • Despite decelerating handset unit growth and weakness in 2009, two segments are still expected to see growth: 3G and Converged Devices
  • Mobile searches for weather, maps, restaurants and movies are the most popular search related queries on mobile devices even more than desktop computers
  • The top 6 devices (iphone, blackberry, etc) only represent 12% of mobile media. There are currently over 1000 different devices used to access mobile media.
  • sports info, location, financial services and bank accounts sarting to emerge as mobile traffic

Merchants Focusing on Leading Social Channels

A recent Shop.org study asked retailers this question: Since last Holiday season, have you added or improved any of the following marketing and / or promotions that you feel will drive improved holiday sales this year?

social-media-online

The answers are very indicative of the growing emphasis retailers are putting on social media. Retailers who are currently using Twitter, recently added the service in 2009 or improved enhancements represent approximately 70% of the study while Facebook had 80% representation. This same study also showed an anticipated increase in 2009 holiday advertising spend of 55% and 73% on Twitter and Facebook respectively. (PS. you can follow Microsoft Advertising on Facebook and Twitter)

There was so much terrific data, trends and insights shared I feel this post doesn't quite do the content justice but I think the primary drivers of advertising focus in 2010 are clear. Mobile and social will be leading the charge and expect overall online advertising budgets to grow as more and more users shift their habits to online mediums.

Check out more of our coverage of ad:tech New York 2009