Advertising dollars go where the customers are, and our shift to increased internet access on phones and tablets hasn’t escaped the notice of media sales companies.
An increasing share of worldwide internet use is with mobile devices and the trend isn’t stopping. Up from an estimated 71 percent this year, the Zenith media buying agency forecasts fully 75 percent of global internet access will be via mobile devices in 2017, according to Reuters.
So far, advertising expenditures haven’t fully caught up with the mobile eyes on the internet, but by 2018 Zenith forecasts 60 percent of global internet advertising will be for mobile devices, with a total outlay of $134 billion, “more than what will be spent on newspaper, magazine, cinema, and outdoor advertising put together.” In 2016 mobile advertising is expected to reach $71 billion globally.
Media, entertainment, and communications businesses are all benefiting from the ad dollar shift to mobile, says Scott Singer, digital media executive and managing director of innovation consultancy DDG, Inc. “In four years, you’ve gone from 40 percent to 70 percent (of total internet use) in mobile,” said Singer.
Why does this matter to you? Assuming you’re not selling or buying advertising yourself, the biggest change consumers will notice, besides a greater number of adds, is increased content available from the telecommunications companies that can deliver that content to mobile devices.
Last week’s agreement for AT&T to buy Time Warner, Inc. is just one example of telecommunications and content merging. Meanwhile, wireless 5G’s 10-gigabit-per-second download speeds are on the far horizon, a rate that lets you stream and download the richest media content available now in just seconds.
Telecommunications companies are now merging and making deals that, as Reuters reported, will “lure viewers to online video and other content that are relayed over their internet and wireless networks, while also attracting advertisers to grow ad revenue.”
