CPG Online Ad Spend to Reach $470 Million

eMarkete: US. The Internet is slowly stripping CPG marketing dollars away from TV, to become the place where offline promotions are fulfilled, and consumers interact with brands in ways that far surpass the impact of a 30-second television spot. Based on IAB/PwC numbers, eMarketer projects that 2006 online ad spending in the CPG category will rise to $470 million, up from $390 million predicted for 2005. eMarketer also calculates that total online ad spending will hit $15.6 billion in 2006.

But the real opportunity for CPG marketers online lies beyond advertising, and rather, in customer relationship building. Things are quickly moving beyond the experimental stage, and some of the largest CPG markets are leading the way in CRM marketing. The big CPG companies are creating whole relationship/lifestyle sites that position their products as solutions or lifestyle choices, and they're offering things like podcasts, ring tones, personalized calendars, cereal boxes and other paraphernalia to remind people of their brands when users are offline. Behind the scenes, too, CPG marketers are spending huge amounts of money on CRM databases to keep customer information fresh and help hone their promotions and new products.

CPG companies spent on average one percent of their total advertising budgets on the Internet in 2004, the last full year reported. But according to recent data from TNS Media Intelligence, online advertising revenues increased 11.5% in the first nine months of 2005 over the same period in 2004. Part of that growth was attributed to large advertisers shifting more of their ad spending online from other media. For the first time since the dot-com bust, offline brands accounted for a majority of Internet ad spending. CPG Online Marketing Publ 20060112 CPG? Wikipedia SearchCRM