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Yesterday I wrote a bit about brand advertising on the web and out of curiosity today I looked up the top digital advertisers versus the top overall advertisers. I didn't spend a ton of time with this, so if someone finds better numbers please let me know. Anyhow, the top 10 advertisers from Q1 2010 are pretty much exactly what one would expect:
Now I'm sure there's been some movement in that, but the basics are pretty consistent: P&G tops the list with a roughly 40 percent bigger spend than anyone else. Following that are some carriers (AT&T, Verizon), entertainment companies (News Corp, Time Warner, Disney) and then some all around giants (GM, Pfizer, GE).
Compare that list to the top top 10 internet advertisers from 2009:
Other than Verizon at 4 and AT&T at 12, not a single player from the overall list shows up in the top 50 (from 2009). Now this could be for a few reasons I guess (not measured properly, spent in non-working), but generally when you look at that second list you see a whole bunch of direct response advertisers. No one has been able to convince big brands in any sort of serious way that the web is a viable medium for doing brand advertising. This isn't a new idea, but I had never thought to compare the two and it's astounding to see that second list.