Digital video advertising, in stark contrast to an expected dip for U.S. Internet advertising revenues in the first half of 2009 vs. 2008, has gone zooming off in the other direction. Overall, online ads are down 5.3 percent year-over-year, but video ads have grown 38 percent, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ quarterly report for the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Video advertising has accounted for $477 million in revenue so far this year, or 4 percent of an overall $10.9 billion in online ads. That’s up from $345 million, or 3 percent of last year’s first-half total.
What we’d consider video advertising is actually broader than this segment. The IAB breaks out digital video advertising as a subset of display advertising. Considered separately within display is sponsorship, or “custom content and/or experiences created for an advertiser which may or may not include ad elements such as display advertising, brand logos, advertorial or pre-roll video.” That category brought in $184 million in the first half of 2009.
Meanwhile, U.S. broadcast television advertising was down 12.3 percent to $20.1 billion in the first six months of the year.