Digital Relevance

Government marketers are bracing themselves for heavy cuts to their advertising budgets after the coalition government asked departments to plan for possible spending cuts of up to 40%.

The new proposed cuts are much heavier than the expected public spending cuts of about 25% percent in most areas, but the government says that the reports are only the worst-case scenarios and may not be…more

Online retail sales increased 22% over the past year, the highest rate of increase for over two years.

The latest IMRG Capgemini e-retail Sales Index results revealed online sales saw a total spend of £4.5bn in May, an equivalent of £73 for every person in the UK.

According to the report, online shopping increased by 3% compared with April this year, with many online retail categories impacted by the World Cup…more

The Times’ iPad edition,which went on sale along with the tablet’s UK debut Friday morning, sold 5,000 copies in three days, News Corp.’s CEO Rupert Murdoch told AllThingsD’s D8 conference Tuesday, at which he also spoke about the true value of content.

At the app price of £9.99, that’s £49,950 income in just a few days, before Apple’s commission. Not bad for a few days’ work, and could be a relatively nice earner…

But whether significant numbers of  iPad users will renew the £9.99 subscription each month, after that first-week flurry of app excitement, remains to be seen.

WSJ

Also at D8, Murdoch said his Wall Street Journal app now has 10,000 customers, paying $17.29 a month or free to those already subscribed to the website/newspaper…more

Government advertising expenditure could fall “by at least 50%” during this financial year with only essential campaigns unaffected, the Central Office of Information has warned agencies in a letter seen by Marketing Week.

The letter, which is signed by Peter Buchanan, deputy chief executive of the COI, says the coalition government is looking to achieve savings of around £160m in its marketing and communications expenditure and warns that a spending freeze “will take effect immediately…more

As the country returns from a trip to the polling stations and election fever fizzes out, how much impact has digital really had on helping to shape the final votes? A straw poll in my office says no, but digital marketers say yes. Which is it?

This election was originally largely hailed as the digital election. The mainstream use of social media and the Internet at large meant MPs had more ways than ever to lobby for your vote.

In many ways they did this. All three of the main parties had special campaign websites, which were frequently updated. At one point or another, they have all used YouTube to post updates. Personal messages have been posted on Facebook and MPs have used Twitter to convey the personal touch of life on the campaign trail (in some cases going too far!)

Reckitt Benckiser (RB), the owner of household brands including Cillit Bang, Air Wick and Vanish, is moving a significant part of its global marketing budget into online video advertising. The shift in strategy follows the investment the US arm made last year in video ads. RB stated last week that it intends to spend $40m this year in the US and £4.3m in the UK on online video advertising.

WPP, the marketing services group, has raised its full-year revenue forecast to 2% growth after reporting an upturn in client marketing spend in the first quarter.

Microsoft has reported a 35% increase in profits for the first three months of 2010, buoyed by increasing sales of Windows 7 which has been backed by a multi-million pound “I’m a PC” advertising push.

The report, which is widely considered the benchmark for the advertising industry, reveals that for the first time in ten consecutive quarters, around 21% of companies reported a rise in their budgets, while only 16% noted reductions.

Over a third of the 300 UK-based companies surveyed have set 2010 budgets higher than 2009 spend. This meant that the net balance for total marketing budgets rose from -7.2 to +4.5, the first signs of positivity since the third quarter of 2007.

The chain revealed a profit increase of 20.5% to £389.7m