First Half ’08: Good for Online Ads, Bad for Everyone Else
Our club basketball team used to have to compete with the big bad badminton team for court space in teeny-weeny Dillon Gym – which does not look like a gym at all, but rather, a medieval dining hall.
One day during a particularly poignant battle, one badminton winner – whom I suspect had had a particularly bad day in the Engineering Quad – triumphed over his longtime rival. Dripping with non-sweat, he raised his racket in air and let it lead him in ever-increasing circles, yelling, "I. Am. CHAMPION!"
And this is about how online advertising industry execs might be feeling right now. The financial crisis has finally started hitting marketing budgets, but instead of sucking money equally out of all mediums, it’s pretty much just traditional advertising that is getting smacked down like a badminton birdie.
Here are the numbers, via the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report: 
- Internet advertising revenues in the US
were $11.5 billion in the first six months of 2008, setting yet another new half-year record that
represents a 15.2% increase over the first half of 2007. - 2Q’08 was up 12.8% over the same period of 2007 and
showed just a slight decline of 0.3% from the first quarter.
The rock stars leading the surge are Search and Display. (Nice to meet you.)
- Search revenues totaled almost $5.1 billion for the first six months of
2008 (up 24% from the $4.1 billion for the same period in 2007) - Display-related advertising, which includes Display Banner ads, Rich Media, Digital Video, and
Sponsorship, totaled close to $3.8 billion for first six
months of 2008, compared to the $3.2 billion reported for the same
period in 2007, showing about a 19% increase.
