Virtually all strategic media planners are expecting to include digital place-based (DPb) media in their plans next year, and it appears that an increasing amount of DPb budgets will be funded from digital and online advertising dollars, per results from a Digital Place-based Advertising Assocation (DPAA) survey released in August 2012. 40.1% of the planners said they would fund their DPb plans from digital and online budgets, representing a 75.1% increase from 22.9% who responded that way last year. Overall, 94.2% of the respondents – who are media professionals employed at full-service and media service agencies across the country – said they will include DPb media in their plans next year, up 9.2% from 86.3% of respondents last year.
An April 2012 study from PQ Media reported that within the US, digital place-based networks (DPN) revenue grew by 7.5% in 2011, while digital billboard and signage revenues increased by 20.3%. On a global basis, digital out-of-home advertising revenue is expected to rise by 19.2% this year.
Most Still Planning to Move Funds From Outdoor, TV
Data from the DPAA study indicates that despite the rise in budget re-allocation from online and digital dollars, outdoor remains the most popular medium from which planners will move dollars to fund digital place-based networks (64.2% of respondents this year projecting such a move, up from 54.2% last year). Roughly 2 in 5 planners will also allocate TV dollars to DPb, though this is down slightly from 43.8% last year, meaning that digital and online budgets are as likely to be cannibalized as TV budgets.
Rounding out the top 5 most frequently-cited media from which respondents would draw DPb dollars are experimental/test (19.8% this year; 18.8% in 2011) and zero-based planning (15.4% this year; 19.8% in 2011).
More Planners Aware of DPb Data
This year, the proportion of strategic media planners aware of various research sources that include data on digital place-based media rose fairly significantly. 54% expressed an awareness of research tools and services offered by Nielsen, up from 46.4% last year. A greater proportion also displayed an awareness of data available from GfK MRI (41.9% vs. 38.5%), IMS (32% vs. 26%), and Experian Simmons (31.6% vs. 23.4%). Knowledge of Arbitron’s services was virtually unchanged from last year, at 20.2%.
About the Data: The DPAA survey was conducted online from May 1-May 29, 2012 by the DPAA among 1,761 media professionals employed at full-service and media service agencies around the country. The response rate was 11.9%.
