The Interactive Advertising Bureau of New Zealand today announced the release of the IAB/PwC Insight report for Q4, 2007. The report shows New Zealand online advertising was $135.17 million for the 2007 calendar year.

Interactive advertising now represents 5.8% of total advertising spend in New Zealand.

The IAB/PwC Insight reports that classified advertising is the largest segment of interactive advertising at 43.62%, with display advertising accounting for 32.85% and search and directories for the remaining 23.53%.

Asked about where growth is expected to come from, Mark Evans (IAB CEO) says that both display and search and directories advertising in New Zealand are still lower as a percentage of total interactive advertising spend than in other countries and predicts strong growth in both those sectors in 2008 and beyond.

Evans says that one of the big drivers for growth is that marketers are realising their advertising spend is out of kilter with the media consumption habits of their target audiences. “Kiwis spend almost 20% of their media consumption time online”, he says, “and yet only around 7% of advertising spend is online”.

“Advertisers are starting to realise that they need to follow the eyeballs, and when they do invest in interactive advertising, they’re finding it to be an incredibly potent medium both for driving direct response, and for branding”, Evans says.

Evans predicts that higher broadband speeds and lower prices will also fuel growth, as will predicted growth in mobile internet usage. “Mobile advertising is in its infancy here in New Zealand”, says Evans, “but global predictions are for an explosion in mobile advertising over the next 3-5 years, which is why we’ve recently setup an IAB sub-committee focusing specifically on the mobile advertising market.”

Above, display advertising was down 9.93% for Q4/07 but total spend in 2007 was higher than many in the industry had predicted.

A copy of the full report is available for download from the IAB New Zealand website at www.iab.org.nz.

I’m keen to prepare a list of companies who can build online display advertising executions for smaller brands - those companies who choose not to engage the services of our accredited advertising agencies.

1. Doubleclique - I mentioned a while back that these guys needed to update their portfolio. Well, now they’ve done it.

2. Tim Cooke - This guy is the business. Introduced to me from Scott Sinclair at Clemenger BBDO, he’s a rockstar - quick, clever and fairly priced.

3. Dan at Instinct is another Wellington digital identity who been building flash games and mobile apps for long enough to be classed as a veteran.

I’m keen to know who you trust and to build up this list. Let me know.

… the huge volume of international traffic hitting some of the major sites must surely mean Domestic UBs are a better measure of potential advertiser reach than ‘all UBs’. I think I’ll post further on this.

… Ralph Brayham’s transfer from Ferrit to Telecom Broadband signals what many in the industry have been speculating since its inception. Telecom’s operational split on 31 March may drive news on the Ferrit.

… the Vague As Brothers are the best new internationally recognised music group to come out of Christchurch in recent years (book them on +64-3-355 6767).

… the Advertising Exchanges arrival down under will make selling your distressed inventory quicker but will the ads finally arrive at the publishers on deadline? I think not!

… the NZ Television Broadcasters Council should try to publish its Media Release announcing a 2.14% rise in 2007 TV advertising revenue on its own website. They really need to start getting this online thing.