Sluggish Online Advertising in USA

Retail advertising online in the US has been sluggish for most of 2001, especially this holiday season versus last year. These are the latest findings from the AdRelevance division of Jupiter Media Metrix.

The data reveals a key finding on online travel advertising, which has soared in 2001 despite a major setback following the September 11 terrorist attacks. It began a sharp increase during the second week of May 2001 with 291.9 million impressions and peaked in the fourth week of August with 1.1 billion impressions, a 263 percent increase. While impressions plummeted during the second week of September and bottomed out at 574.4 million during the first week of October, the industry has since returned to 94 percent of its pre-September 11 levels.

The research also covers the performance of the top ten US online travel advertisers - ranked according to their share of total travel impressions for the week ending Dec. 2, 2001 - four are online agencies, making up 64 percent of the market, and three are airlines, making up six percent. The top advertisers are: Orbitz with 44 percent of the travel market, Travelocity with 13 percent and Hotwire with 5 percent.

'The early 2001 launch of Orbitz.com put a surge into travel advertising, with the industry more than doubling between the spring and the end of summer,' said Charles Buchwalter, vice president media research. 'However, the industry took a major hit on September 11, as travel companies halted advertising out of respect for the victims, as well as to promote disaster relief efforts. But the sector has showed incredible resiliency as booking services and airlines have turned to the Web to reach out to consumers during the busy holiday season.'

While most of this year's major online advertising growth-indices compare closely with those in 2000, the retail sector has been mixed and is now off to a slow start to the historically frenzied holiday period. So far this season, weekly online ad impressions for the retail sector have reached 3.7 billion in the fourth week of November, up eight percent from 3.4 billion in the first week of October. This compares to last year's growth rate of 18 percent over the same period, when weekly impressions increased from 2.4 billion to 2.9 billion. Retail advertising last year eventually peaked in the fourth week of December at 3.7 billion impressions, up 53 percent from the first week of October.

'This year's holiday ramp-up has yet to reach the growth trajectory of last year's,' added Buchwalter. 'Declines in consumer confidence resulting from the economic downturn as well as the September 11 attacks may be responsible for the delayed increase in retail advertising. We'll be watching closely to see if the sector catches up in the final days of the holiday shopping season.'

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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