Blogs for Companies

Two months ago, I told you that the ad market for blogs was pretty small. A survey from the American Advertising Federation (AAF) released last week brings more bad news. It confirms that a majority of advertisers think that “blogs are too risky to advertise” because of the lack of predictability of the editorial content. Read more…

Before looking specifically at blogs, it’s important to notice that online advertising is expected to vastly grow.

Average spending on online advertising, as a percentage of the total media budget, is anticipated to increase from 15 percent in 2005 to 20 percent in 2006, and forecasted to reach 32 percent by 2010.

Now, let’s look at what this survey (Word format, 2 pages, 32 KB) tells us specifically about blogs and the ad market: “Advertising industry leaders generally have a more positive view of user-generated content sites (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) than blogs.”

• While 24% have advertised on a blog and 7% plan to do so in the next year, 19% have advertised on a user-generated content site, and 14% plan to do so in the next year.
• Blogs are considered to be relatively riskier than user-generated content sites, with 62% agreeing with the statement that “blogs are too risky to advertised with due to lack of predictability of the editorial environment,” and 53% agreeing with the same statement about user generated content.
• 76% were concerned about “the ability to control brand/product image” on blogs, as opposed to 67% for user-generated content sites.
• While 70% said that blogs are “useful for niche advertising, but will not have an effect on major accounts,” only 41% agreed with the statement when applied to user-generated content sites.
• 91% said that advertisers “should exploit the viral marketing opportunities” of user-generated content sites, while 81% said the same of blogs.

So what’s next for blogs if they’re not able to attract advertisers? Nothing for the vast majority of them. But probably unpleasant times for the bloggers who relied on money from ads. And you, what do you think of this survey?

Source: American Advertising Federation news release, June 11, 2006

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 17th, 2006 at 1843 and is filed under Announcements & News, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.