Plans to increase budgets for online video advertising could be sounding the death knell to another, less measurable ad format, according to a new report.

Out of home advertising (OOH) such as posters and billboards in public areas may still represent a large proportion of ad spend but its days as a key player may be numbered.

Findings in the ‘2014 US State of the Video Industry’ report from AOL-owned ad measurement firm Adap.tv indicates 65% of growth for online video ad spend last year compared to 2012. As more companies start to commit investment to this area, their marketers are having to make tough decisions on the formats which need to make way.

Overall, things do not look pretty for OOH along with several other offline ad channels.

Balancing the costs

When asked last year to declare which budgets would most likely be tapped to fund their increased video ad spend, a resounding 42% of marketers claimed that OOH would see a reduced investment.

This is in stark contrast to the picture in 2010, when just 3% of marketers announced plans to drain resources from OOH to fund their online video campaigns. Cable TV was voted for by 11% of those surveyed, up from 3% in 2010, but broadcast TV actually managed to shrink its proportion down from 31% in 2010 to 21% in 2013.

Print witnessed a similar decline as 21% of marketers planned on reducing their spend in this area compared to 16% in 2010.

One of the more interesting areas set to see a decline is search, which is now being earmarked for a reduction by 26% of the group. Adap.tv played down the seriousness of the finding in its notes, also stating that search is a good way to draw attention to online video.

Video goes programmatic

Adap.tv summarised that online video would grow exponentially over the next year as brands piggyback on what has already been a well-received format.

Spend will also be powered by improvements to ad technology, and with more than half of publishers backing their premium video ad inventory to become programmatic, websites are clearly prepared to move with the times.  

However, there may also be a slight disparity in what agencies would recommend to their clients compared to what brands feel they need. This was evident in readings that showed 86% of brands would increase their video spend in 2014, just below the 91% of agencies that planned on doing the same.