Advertisements promise – service delivers!

While many of us became tired of the political ads last campaign season, they were good for one thing – advertising revenues!

People continue to talk about the value of “social media” and “word-of-mouth” but the paid advertisement is far from dead. As such, delivering experiences that meet those advertising promises is an important deliverable.

According to research by Kantar Media, “total advertising expenditures in the first nine months of 2010 grew 6.4% from a year ago and finished the period at $94.06 billion. Ad spending during the third quarter of 2010 was up 8.7% versus last year, the largest quarterly gain since the end of 2004.”

So where did the ad dollars go?

“Television media continued to pace the advertising recovery. Spot TV expenditures surged behind the swell of political advertising and sustained demand from automotive marketers and retailers. Spanish Language TV spending rose aided by the World Cup event during June and July. Gains for Cable TV and Network TV were driven by sharply higher spending from the auto, financial service and consumer package goods categories.

Internet display advertising had the second largest growth rate among the media sectors compared to the year ago period. Outdoor was close behind.

Spending in National Spot Radio jumped and Local Radio rose, with each being paced by larger outlays from auto dealer and financial service advertisers. Network Radio registered a small increase.”

Also noteworthy is the big jump in ad spending among the ten largest advertisers. That jump went from 5.9%(2009) to $11.91 billion (2010) in the first nine months of each year.

Procter & Gamble maintained its number one ranking followed by AT&T, General Motors and Verizon…

How much are you spending on advertising these days?

Where are your customers?  Where are your messages?

Do your messages resonate with your brand promise?  Does your experience live up to those ads?