By Dave Porter

(AXcess News) Reno - eMarketer points out that more ad dollars are going online, despite the fact that overall ad spend is down, citing the latest Outlook by media guru Jack Myers who forecast 12.2% of ad spending would be on the Internet this year, up from 10.6% in 2008.

Newspapers continue to suffer from dropping advertising levels.  Myers' forecast is for newspaper ad spending share to drop to 14.6% in 2009 from 16.3% the prior year, which overall is a significant amount of money.  Outside of the Internet, cable and broadcast television looks to see an increase this year with cable climbing to 8.7% from 7.8% in 2008 and broadcast tv getting 8.3% in 2009 compared to 7.9% the prior year.  Local and national tv spot advertising gave up yardage, forecast to generate 10.1% of ad spending share this year compared to 10.9% in 2008.

eMarketer noted that, "2009 will be the first year that ad spending online is greater than local and national spot TV, with online expenditures rising from 10.6% of the total in 2008 to 12.2% this year. The rise in market share will occur despite a 0.5% drop in spending forecast for online in 2009, to $24.55 billion."

Commenting on tv ad spending, Myers says, "A consistent pattern is emerging: advertisers will avoid making budget commitments until absolutely necessary."  Myers' comments were made in the spirit of the US advertising arena being in the throws of a recession, like that's a surprise.

I do hope that the holder of the virtual crystal ball [Myers] is right on the money when it comes to advertising spending on the Internet, which includes search, display, online video, social networks, widgets and what ever else you can think of.  Myers forecast internet ad spending share to rise to 13.4% in 2011 "when it will surpass print to become the top medium."  Knock on wood Jack, knock on wood.

Video game advertising is expected to be the sweet spot in internet advertising spending growth this year at 12% with mobile coming in second at 9%.  Branded entertainment/product placement is expected to grow 2%.  I only mention the later category as its interesting to note the number of paid-display sites coming into being with various pay-for-it models mostly relating to P-P-C.  Custom publishing, on the other hand, is expected to garner 9.4% of US ad spend share, up from 9.2% the prior year.  Custom publishing is for the most part kept down in the noise but its value to companies is slowing gaining in popularity and field worth watching.  I predict there will be cross marketing deals struck with online publishers who are looking for both content and a new revenue source for their web sites.

Myers did not peel off search advertising and try to pontificate on it like most do.  He was wise in lumping it into US Internet ad spending share, but I believe it won't be the prom queen like it once was as many small advertisers are growing sick of being pitted against one another in a bidding process for the top page locations.  It might be why some ad dollars are looking into branded entertainment/product placement arena, though the newbies in it are more like cheap magicians trying to pull a rabbit out of their hat.  For many, the 'five ways to make your teeth whiter' marketers are not delivering the results customers hope for.  But then, its all in how you measure results, eh?