New Survey Indicates Strong Future for Online Marketing & PR

AdMedia Partners is out with its annual survey of senior executives at the top advertising, marketing and Internet firms regarding their views about the industry and potential mergers and acquisitions. A majority of respondents indicated the hottest areas for growth are mobile marketing, viral and guerilla marketing, search marketing and online market analytics. Interestingly, 83% of the executives surveyed said they have jumped into new services over the past year driven by what they described as the “expanding definition of marketing.” Client demand for online services continues to be strong and firms are no longer worrying about offering services that traditionally used to come from say a PR firm vs. an advertising agency. Digital marketing has opened up the business to new players regardless of their history and made them attractive acquisition targets. Some other key findings:

• a majority believe that even though the U.S. enjoys strong growth in online marketing services, the real potential rests in Asia;
• the Internet has marketing providers rethinking the relationship between media and marketing, and advertisers are now much more open to being served by a wider variety of suppliers who bring fresh thinking to the planning table; and,
• as advertisers demand increased exposure to influencers, public relations and public affairs agencies will remain good targets for firms to increase their online capabilities.