University study on Swiss online advertising market
Companies are increasingly placing their ads online. As a result, advertising budgets are shifting largely to the Internet. Facebook, in particular, is gaining popularity among advertising professionals. This is shown by a survey conducted by the University of Geneva.
According to the survey, online advertising media accounted for around 70% of budget preferences. Advertisers placed their ads primarily via Facebook, traditional websites, but also via search engines and YouTube. In terms of traditional advertising, public television is in the lead.
In the analysis of the survey, the shift towards online channels is described as a medium-term trend. The upheavals are significant because the new players are taking over more than two thirds of the market, the researchers found.
Assuming that the Swiss advertising market stabilizes at around five billion francs, this means that the sector of the new digital players would increase from 642 million francs to around three billion francs. The change would therefore be more than two billion and would be at the expense of the traditional media, in particular the print press, the authors conclude.
Alternative to Google
However, they also emphasize that this scenario is not a forecast, but a description of a trend. Four scenarios were developed. In one of the scenarios, SRG SSR is expected to gain access to digital advertising. This would make the company a key element in the Swiss digital advertising market and an alternative to new players such as Google and Facebook.
A significant proportion of advertising money flows into foreign advertising windows. According to the authors, the abolition of these windows would therefore be tantamount to a considerable windfall for the other channels. However, according to the authors, the Swiss media can only be saved thanks to framework conditions for both the private and public sectors. The authors do not explain how these should be structured.
Almost 600 companies were contacted for the study and 196, or just under a third, responded to the survey.
