Online video spend overtakes banner ads for first time

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Driven by the rise in popularity of people watching online video, advertisers spent more on video ads than banner ads for the first ever time – according to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau UK / PwC Digital Adspend report.

In the first half of 2017, advertisers spent £699 million on video ads – a 46% year-on-year rise – whilst spend on banner ads increased by just under 2% to £685 million. Video is the fastest-growing ad format and now accounts for 35% of all spend going on display advertising.

The IAB’s CEO Jon Mew says, “The time people spend watching online video has grown tremendously over the last few years, so it’s little wonder that video is now the fastest-growing ad format as advertisers look to tap into the changing way people consume content.”  

The time people spend watching short video clips appears to have almost trebled over the last three years (Sept 2014 to Sept 2017): from 51 minutes to 2 hrs 21 minutes per week, according to YouGov data¹.

Within video advertising, spend on outstream²/social in-feed nearly doubled and is now the most popular format, accounting for 52% of video spend (£363 million), overtaking pre-and post-roll ads which account for 44% (£309 million).

Dave Counsell, Digital Trading Director, the7stars, said: “There’s no doubt that video is digital’s most important and powerful format. Growth in online consumption, improvements in measurement, quality of placements, targeting and creativity are now available alongside its unrivalled effectiveness. It’s an extremely exciting time to witness the strong results video is providing for advertisers.”

Display advertising as a whole grew 18% to £2 billion, whilst search grew 15% to £2.8 billion and classifieds remained flat at £692 million. Thus, overall digital ad spend grew 13.8% to £5.56bn in the first half of 2017.

With half of UK internet time now being spent on smartphones³, mobile’s share of digital ad spend has risen from 35% to 43%, or £2.37 billion. Mobile’s year-on-year growth was 38% and now accounts for 57% of all display ad spend, 70% of video spend and 83% of social media spend. 

Ad spend on social media sites grew 42% to £1.05 billion, accounting for over half (53%) of the display ad market.

Mew concludes, “Historically, growth has been the major and constant theme about digital ad spend. However, that’s only one indicator of the industry’s success, and as the IAB UK enters its 21st year, it’s about shifting focus to initiatives that will ensure the long-term sustainable health of the industry as it enters adulthood, and provide advertisers with the best possible environment.”

¹YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2123 adults. Survey was conducted online during 19-21st September, 2014 and 26th-27th September 2017. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+). NB in 2014, the base was all GB adults online who have watched short clips online in the last 6 months, compared to all GB adults online being asked in 2017. Also, in 2014 respondents were asked to think about the amount of time they spend watching short clips in an average week, compared to an average day in 2017.

²Outstream refers to video ads that appear anywhere on the page (typically between paragraphs of text), not before video content.

³UKOM/comScore: 18+ time spent June 2017