The trend in 2007 is towards online advertising

Analysts from the financial advisory firm Merrill Lynch and the advertising agencies ZenithOptimedia and GroupM are predicting a decline in spending on the global and US advertising market in 2007. According to the Wall Street Journal, shifts to new media such as the Internet and the fragmentation of target groups are cited as reasons for the slowdown in growth. Online advertising expenditure is growing due to advertising on online video and social networking sites, according to the analysts. Traditional media will suffer from increasing price pressure in the coming year. This is due to the fact that the Internet offers new, cheaper advertising opportunities. In Germany, too, the trend in 2007 is clearly moving towards Internet advertising. As a rule, German companies would invest around 80 percent of their advertising budget in traditional media and 20 percent in online advertising. Norman Wagner, Director of Marketing and Sales at Thomson Media Control, told Pressetext.ch that at least one company has indicated that this ratio will be reversed in the coming year.
According to Merrill Lynch and GroupM, the rapidly growing US spending on online advertising will cool down somewhat in 2007, but is still expected to remain in the double-digit range. ZenithOptimedia, on the other hand, predicts an increase in spending from 25 percent this year to 29 percent in 2007.