At the Code Conference held outside Los Angeles last week, analyst Mary Meeker delivered her annual State of the Internet slideshow covering the trends and opportunities in the online world.
One of the most watched graphs is the time spent on media versus the advertising spend on that channel.
For years Meeker has shown print is receiving a higher share of advertising dollars for the amount of time consumers spend on it compared to online channels.
That implies print revenue is due for collapse and online advertising revenues will surge. Here’s the 2014 chart.
If we track this over the last five years, here’s what we see with the ‘difference’ column being the sum of print’s over-representation and online’s (mobile and web) under-spending.
| Year | Print time | Print share | Online time | Online share | difference |
| 2010 | 12 | 26 | 28 | 13 | 29 |
| 2011 | 7 | 25 | 36 | 23 | 31 |
| 2012 | 6 | 23 | 38 | 25 | 30 |
| 2013 | 5 | 19 | 45 | 26 | 35 |
The collapse in print’s share of consumer time, down 60% in five years, is stunning and the 2012-13 changes may indicate advertising spend may is now collapsing as marketers start to adapt to the changed marketplace.
It could be however that advertising as we know it has to change; one of the key reasons for online – particularly mobile’s – spending being under represented is because no-one is quite sure what works in the newer mediums.
Advertisers may know that consumers are moving from print channels, but at least they know what works in print. Online the experts’ guesses are still not much better than the amateurs’.
In short, we’re still watining for the digital era’s David Sarnoff. As Mary Meeker keeps reminding us, it’s a $20bn a year opportunity.