European Online Advertising reaches a landmark €30.7bn after five consecutive years of double digit growth

2014, a very positive year for digital advertising in Europe

At the 9th edition of its annual Interact conference IAB Europe today announced that online advertising grew 11.6% to a market value of €30.7bn in 2014.

The AdEx Benchmark research – the definitive guide to the state of the European online advertising market – revealed that online advertising achieved double digit growth for a fifth consecutive year.

All markets participating in the study recorded positive growth and twenty markets grew double-digit. Mobile and video ad spend continued on their strong growth curves and are now a significant proportion of display and search ad spend.

Townsend Feehan, CEO of IAB Europe, commented “The AdEx Benchmark results highlight the importance of digital advertising for growth in Europe’s economy. We need to ensure that digital advertising enables the European digital sector to compete across the world.”

Display, Search and Classifieds

The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark study splits the online ad market into 3 broad segments: Display, Search and Classifieds and Directories. Growth in these online advertising formats has been underpinned by shifting uses in devices and changing consumption patterns.

Display advertising outperformed other categories with a growth rate of 15.2% and the pace of Display growth further accelerated versus 2013. In 2014, the total value of the Display ad market was €10.9bn.

Search showed growth of 10.8% - and a market value of €14.7 billion. It continues to be the largest online advertising format in terms of revenue, but has recorded a deceleration in its growth rate in the last three years.

The 2014 Classifieds and Directories market grew 5.8% to €4.9bn showing growth of 5.8%. Classifieds & Directories benefitted from the improvement in the economy, but is increasingly challenged by Paid-for-search and Data-driven Display to compete for advertising budgets.

Mobile and video are driving growth

Mobile now accounts for 17.7% of the display market, with a growth rate of 72.5% compared with 2013.

Online video advertising also showed strong growth, now representing 15.1% of the display market.

Eleni Marouli, a Senior Analyst at IHS and author of the report, “The sustained double-digit growth in online advertising in the last five years demonstrates the continual evolution of the online advertising market. The two formats driving this growth in 2014 were mobile and video. The rise of mobile and video is a reflection of the investment and innovation of the online advertising industry to meet advertiser needs, not just a reaction to shifts in consumption trends”

Regional and national pictures

Daniel Knapp, Director of Advertising Research at IHS Technology and author of the research, said, "Our study shows that even the most mature online advertising markets in Europe sustain double digit growth, clearly indicating the economic vibrancy of the sector. This growth is primarily enabled by the proliferation of intelligent data infrastructures. Data is the growth engine behind advertising that serves as a connective tissue between consumers, media and brands.”

The CEE region grew strongly as online advertising is still benefitting from the improvements in broadband infrastructure and the increase in broadband penetration in these markets, which brings more addressable audiences online. However, growth in European online advertising continues to be driven by the most mature online advertising markets in Europe. This is a direct result of investment in formats and targeting capabilities and developing data strategies in a cross-device environment.

As Europe exits the double-dip recession, advertising markets will benefit from increased optimism from brands. Provided that publishers continue to improve their offerings, online advertising spend is well-placed to be the main beneficiary of the larger advertising budgets. Mobile and video will be the primary areas of interest for these brands.

The top 10 list of markets are as follows. Top 3 Individual growth markets were:

1. Slovenia 43.1% growth
2. Ireland 33.3%.growth
3. Belarus 32.8%growth

Top 10 Rankings

1. UK - €8.9bn
2. Germany – €5.4bn
3. France - €3.7bn
4. Italy – €1.9bn
5. Russia- €1.8bn
6. Netherlands - €1.5bn
7. Sweden - €1.0bn
8. Spain – €0.9bn
9. Denmark - €0.7bn
10. Norway - €0.7bn

The winners were announced last night at the gala dinner held as part of IAB Europe’s Interact conference in Berlin (www.interactcongress.eu).

IAB Europe is pleased to announce the winners for its 2015 Research Awards; Ekstra Bladet, GIK, Yahoo!, Sky Media and Havas Media Group, BrandScience, Facebook and GfK, United Internet Media, Microsoft, Gemius, comScore and IAB UK.

The awards recognise and celebrate the contribution made to the development of the industry by innovative research projects and the teams behind them.

Alison Fennah, Executive Business Advisor for IAB Europe said: “Congratulations to all of our 2015 winners and highly commended entries, whose projects will become part of IAB Europe’s best practice libraries used and referenced by industry professionals. The quality of entries continues to improve each year demonstrating the importance of research for industry development.”

IAB Europe’s libraries showcase best practice multi-device research and brand ad effectiveness case studies.

Rasmus Giese, CEO at United Internet Media said: “Gaining pan-European recognition for our research by winning an IAB Europe Research Award is a great achievement and we are very proud to have won the Multi-Screen category. Sharing best practices from across Europe is extremely valuable to the development of the digital advertising industry.”

The 2015 winning and highly commended entries are:

About the IAB Europe Research Awards

The IAB Europe Research Awards are an opportunity for the digital marketing industry to recognise and celebrate the contribution made to the development of the industry by innovative research projects and the teams behind them.

Winning projects will become part of the IAB Europe expanding library of proof points for industry professionals to use in their strategies and daily work. Each project can be entered for up to three relevant categories in the following list:

1. Brand Advertising Effectiveness - projects that demonstrate the contribution of digital advertising to brand key performance indicators (KPIs) such as awareness, purchase intent or perception
2. Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour – projects that shed light on consumer media consumption, their views on digital media and what this means for the advertiser
3. Mobile - advertising research projects that include results specific to usage of a mobile device
4. Video –research projects that include results specific to digital video advertising or consumption (NEW category for 2015)
5. Social Media - advertising research projects that include results on specific social media campaigns
6. Multi-Screen - research projects that include results on consumer use of multiple screens
7. Audience Measurement – projects that have contributed a significant development into how digital audiences are measured; this might be within a market or apply to a specific audience group
8. Best Use of Research Budget – projects that have made use of a specified limited budget for a piece of research

The Jury

Nick Hiddleston, Worldwide Research Director, ZenithOptimedia was Chairman of the 2015 Jury which and was joined by Paul Hardcastle, Director, International Consumer Research at Yahoo!, Ariane Längsfeld, European Brand Manager - Media & Digital at Millward Brown, Pawel Kolenda, Research Director at IAB Poland and Tuncay Yavuz, IAB Turkey Board Member, Head of Technical Committee on Measurement and Digital Director at OMD Turkey.

More information about the jury here.

Media

Please contact: Marie-Clare Puffett, Research and Marketing Coordinator, researchawards@iabeurope.eu

Brussels, 7 May 2015 - IAB Europe is delighted to announce the shortlist of finalists for its 2015 Research Awards. Winners of the eight categories will be announced at IAB Europe’s Interact conference in Berlin on 20th May (www.interactcongress.eu).

Nick Hiddleston, Worldwide Research Director, ZenithOptimedia and Chairman of the Jury said, “The popularity of the IAB Europe Research Awards has grown consistently since their inception and I am delighted to chair the Jury for the fourth year. The quality of entries continues to rise and I look forward to finalising the winners with the other judges.”

Meet the Jury

The Jury consists of three European corporate representatives and two IAB representatives, from the CEE region, making it representative of the European market place. Nick Niddleston, Chairman of the Jury, is joined by Paul Hardcastle, Director, International Consumer Research at Yahoo!, Ariane Längsfeld, European Brand Manager - Media & Digital at Millward Brown,Pawel Kolenda, Research Director at IAB Poland and Tuncay Yavuz, IAB Turkey Board Member, Head of Technical Committee on Measurement and Digital Director at OMD Turkey.

More information about the jury members can be found online here: https://www.interactcongress.eu/articles/416/Research-Awards-Jury-2015.html

The Jury has drawn up the following shortlist and will meet to judge the shortlisted entries.

The 2015 shortlisted entries are:

Alison Fennah, Executive Business Advisor, IAB Europe said: “The fifth edition of the IAB Europe Research Awards brings us another record number of entries from across Europe. We look forward to announcing the winners in Berlin on 20^th May.”

About the IAB Europe Research Awards

The IAB Europe Research Awards are an opportunity for the digital marketing industry to recognise and celebrate the contribution made to the development of the industry by innovative research projects and the teams behind them.

Winning projects will become part of the IAB Europe expanding library of proof points for industry professionals to use in their strategies and daily work. Each project can be entered for up to three relevant categories in the following list:

1. Brand Advertising Effectiveness - projects that demonstrate the contribution of digital advertising to brand key performance indicators (KPIs) such as awareness, purchase intent or perception
2. Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour – projects that shed light on consumer media consumption, their views on digital media and what this means for the advertiser
3. Mobile - advertising research projects that include results specific to usage of a mobile device
4. Video –research projects that include results specific to digital video advertising or consumption (NEW category for 2015)
5. Social Media - advertising research projects that include results on specific social media campaigns
6. Multi-Screen - research projects that include results on consumer use of multiple screens
7. Audience Measurement – projects that have contributed a significant development into how digital audiences are measured; this might be within a market or apply to a specific audience group
8. Best Use of Research Budget – projects that have made use of a specified limited budget for a piece of research

The Industry Coalition for Data Protection (ICDP) looks forward to the publication of the European Commission’s Communication on a Digital Single Market (DSM) Strategy for Europe on May 6th. We are hopeful that it will be ambitious, optimistic, and focused.

We share the European Commission’s aspiration to ensure that Europe becomes a global leader in ICT and reaches its full potential in the fields of Big Data, data-driven science and the Internet of Things.

However, we have serious doubts that the legislative text on data protection proposed by the European Commission and the versions currently being considered by the Council and the European Parliament are compatible with the goals of the DSM strategy.

While there are elements that are helpful, overall, the Regulation risks increasing red tape and creating legal uncertainty. Worse, in practice many provisions would damage privacy by banning low-risk processing or creating perverse incentives for the gathering of more data than is necessary.

We call on the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission to take a fresh look at the proposed data protection Regulation prior to the start of trialogue negotiations, to ensure that this key building block of the future legislative framework contributes to realising the vision laid out in the DSM Communication, rather than undermining it.

ICDP is comprised of 21 associations representing thousands of European and international companies who are building, delivering, and advancing the digital experience. Members of ICDP include: ACT | The App Association, American Chamber of Commerce to the EU (AmCham EU), BSA | The Software Alliance (BSA), Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), European Coordination Committee of the Radiological, Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry (COCIR), DIGITALEUROPE, European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA), E-Commerce Europe, European Digital Media Association (EDiMA), European Multi-channel and Online Trade Association (EMOTA), European Publishers Council (EPC), European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA), Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA), Federation of European National Collection Associations (FENCA), GS1, IAB Europe, Interactive Software, Federation of Europe (ISFE), Japan Business Council in Europe (JBCE), TechAmerica Europe and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).

The Mobile Brand Builders are a suite of five mobile brand advertising formats which offers a new branding environment to advertisers.

 Following on from the PC and Tablet in-page Brand Builder formats published last year, IAB Europe has been focusing on Mobile display which represents a double-digit proportion of display advertising spend in Europe (AdEx Benchmark 2013).

The Mobile Brand Builders’ recommendation aims to fuel the increase of brand advertising on mobile through Programmatic Trading by simplifying the landscape of mobile ad formats across Europe and reducing the processes and costs related with planning and booking national and Europe-wide brand advertising campaigns.

Gavin Stirrat, Chief Operating Officer at StrikeAd said: “The Mobile Brand Builders lay the foundation for brand advertisers to scale their brand communications via mobile whilst integrating effectively with other channels. This is thanks to a simple set of formats which will resonate with brands and are accessible via programmatic platforms.”

Markus Breuer, Director of Mobile and Emerging Channels at nugg.ad said: “The diverse number of small mobile formats has created an entry hurdle for advertisers and planners and prevented brand building via mobile. The Mobile Brand Builders aim to simplify this to make planning and booking mobile branding campaigns more efficient and enable maximum creativity with larger interactive formats.”

> Watch the webinar recording

7 key benefits

1. Only five formats recommended in total

2. Two-phase option (static or dynamic) for all formats to optimally support brand advertisers’ objectives and agencies’ creativity

3. The only format prescription within the suite is the pixel dimension for the static formats, the rest is a blank canvas giving flexibility to the advertiser/ creative agency

4. Recommendation of the already-popular 300x250 format to enable (programmatic) brand advertising across channels

5. A 16:9 TV compatible dimension to make brand advertising across TV and digital easier. By providing a 16:9 TV compatible dimension the suite is able to support in-page video advertising

6. Compatibility with other format recommendations – the Mobile Brand Builders are compatible with the more prescriptive IAB / MMA format standards and the more creative IAB Mobile Rising Stars

7. A best practice list to enable effective brand building in the mobile environment

A bottom up approach 

The Mobile Brand Builders were developed through a bottom up approach which consisted of a pan-European survey and desk research to understand the current formats landscape in Europe, and the current recommendations/ standards in place, e.g. the IAB / MMA format standards.

IAB Europe also undertook an outreach phase to gather feedback from the local IABs and major mobile DSPs to ensure the recommendation is suitable for the market place.

Next steps 

IAB Europe’s next steps will be to focus on responsive design formats and a Video Ad Formats Task Force will start to develop a recommendation for in-stream brand advertising across screens.

IAB Europe’s Mobile Brand Builders, a suite of five recommended mobile brand advertising formats, offer a new branding environment to advertisers.

Following on from the PC and Tablet in-page Brand Builder formats published last year, IAB Europe’s Mobile Ad Formats Task Force identified two key challenges in the mobile landscape:

• The landscape of mobile ad formats across Europe is extremely cluttered (verified through a survey conducted by IAB Europe). This means that planning and booking mobile branding campaigns is complex and costly creating an entry hurdle especially for medium-budget campaigns.
• There is a constant growing number of mobile devices leading to a plethora of different screen sizes and resolutions. This results in an increasing number of (device specific) aesthetically unpleasing placement of ads within web pages and apps, i.e. ads originally developed for one screen size appearing on a device with a different screen size.

The recommendation aims to achieve the following objectives:

1. Drive brand investment into digital
2. Fuel the increase of brand advertising on mobile through Programmatic Trading
3. Simplify the landscape of mobile ad formats across Europe
4. Reduce the processes and costs related with planning and booking national and Europe-wide brand advertising campaigns