In a few short years, British advertisers have embraced the Internet and forged ahead of everyone else in the world in adapting it so quickly to their marketing strategies. In 2002, the British only had 1.4 percent of their advertising online in comparison to 2.5 percent in the U.S., according to the Internet Advertising Bureau, in both Britain and the U.S.
Growth in Britain has reached an astonishing 40 percent annual clip, while now accounting for around 14 percent of the overall ad spending for the whole year, media buying agencies say. This over doubles what the U.S. is doing. Terry Semel, CEO of Yahoo (YHOO), says that the U.S. is up to 2 years behind Britain in this.
British analysts are saying that it won't be too long before Internet advertising becomes larger than TV advertising. At this time TV advertising accounts for 20% of the British advertising pie, while by 2010, some think that the Internet will reach 25 percent of Britains overall ad spend.
This is already causing problems in Britains largest commercial broadcaster, ITV. It's predicted that their revenue will drop by a huge 13 percent in 2006 alone. This has prompted a couple of big players like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson to be interested in them as a potential takeover. Murdoch has already purchased almost 18% of the company.
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