Media professionals in Britain have listed cross-device advertising as the subject they’d most like to explore in-depth as part of a study led by personalisation experts Conversant.
As brands take stock of their marketing activity for 2014, campaign managers will be going about listing the topics and ad concepts they feel could do with a greater level of focus in the next 12 months.
According to Conversant’s survey of over 300 respondents from professionals at large and mid-sized ad agencies, the need to enhance knowledge in cross-device advertising is the UK professional’s biggest priority, voted for by 69% of their group.
Professionals in France and Germany were found to be slightly less enthusiastic towards cross-device delivery, although proportions of 40% and 62% respectively would still indicate a high amount of interest. Attentions across the three countries were found in other areas of ad technology, such as video, mobile and web personalisation.
Priorities intact
Although there is a need for advertisers to jump on board with fast-growing digital ad formats such as video and mobile, Conversant’s results showed that brands still have a lot of work to do in highlighting the performance of their existing activity.
The subject of measurement and attribution, for example, returned an overwhelming amount of interest from media pros in France (56%), Germany (33%) and the UK (57%) respectively.
There was also evidence of certain digital channels reaching a stage of maturity in the eyes of EU marketers. Social media was listed as a topic of interest by just 28% of marketers in France and 37% in the UK. This is in stark contrast to its first position in the same table just a few years ago, but could be explained by the fact that a high proportion of marketers in France (78%), UK (76%) and Germany (71%) all invest in the channel.
UK streaks ahead
As for spend by nation, the UK is set to once again eclipse progress in Germany and France as British marketers swarm on digital channels.
Conversant revealed that 31% of UK media pros forecasted spend of €5 million plus on their digital marketing for 2014 – far above the 17% and 13% in France and Germany respectively.
French marketing budgets are more likely to form around the €2 million – €5 million mark, selected by 22%, with the highest German group (24%) predicting spend of €1 million – €2 million.