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Direct Marketing, Mobile, and Social Areas of Strength; Notable Deterioration in Environment and Outlook; Emerging Companies of Growing Importance

Chicago, IL, March 13, 2009 --To gauge the current state of the interactive marketing industry, discover emerging trends, and identify key beneficiaries, the Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) recently conducted its sixth semiannual survey of its members and associates. The data was collected during January and February of 2009 with results tabulated, analyzed, and prepared by CIMA's partner analyst and industry consultant, Troy Mastin.

In total, approximately 120 respondents completed the survey and provided the following highlight:

• Rich media and search seen as strongest established tactics; Mobile and social represent the most interesting areas of growth. After fading from survey one to survey four, search strengthened again with 30% of respondents selecting it as the tactic with the fastest growth outlook in the coming year behind rich media with 41%. This gap of 11% is down from 50% in survey four. Regarding emerging forms of online marketing, behavioral targeting was replaced by others as the form of Internet adverting with the most potential. Those replacing behavioral targeting are social networks with 22% of responses, behind mobile with 37%. However, skepticism regarding the outlook for mobile and social still exists with only 23% of respondents “absolutely” confident that social will be a significant generator of leads, revenue, or traffic and 79% of respondents (up from 61%) indicating that mobile will not “break through” as a major advertising medium until 2010 or later.
• A sharp decline in the health of the industry noted. In a break from the first five surveys over the past 3 years, the state of the industry is viewed as much less robust with growth expected to be 5.0% over the next 12 months versus an average of 18.5% for the first five surveys. Online media prices were indicated as declining 4.8% over the past 6 months as compared to average growth of between 3.2% and 8.4% in earlier surveys. On a scale of one to five (five is very healthy) the industry was rated at 3.43, down from an average of 4.09 with earlier surveys.
• Economic conditions and industry dynamics impacting vertical categories. When asked about the health of particular verticals, the economy is clearly having a chilling effect on the marketing activity within the automotive, travel, and financial services industries, which were rated as the three weakest; a contrast to surveys one through four when these categories were regularly viewed as the strongest. The consumer packed goods (CPG) category was seen as the strongest category for the first time ever likely due to its economic resilience. The apparel and professional services categories were viewed comparatively more favorably than in recent surveys suggesting that marketers in these categories may be accelerating a shift to online marketing.
• Google and Facebook seen as the Industry leaders but "up and coming" solutions continue to fragment the landscape. Google was considered the best-positioned Internet "media" company for the next two years, garnering 41% of the responses, down from 61% last survey and at its lowest ever. Facebook gained traction, increasing from 11% to 19% which exceeded the 15% combined total from Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask, and MySpace. The "other" category received 25% of responses, suggesting that further fragmentation of the landscape will occur due to emerging players such as Twitter, Wikipedia, Hulu, Tumblr, and Craigslist.
• Direct marketing viewed as better insulated than advertising for the first time. Consistent with a surge in successful direct marketing in traditional media recently (e.g. the Snuggie and ShamWow), advertisers were selected at a 2.2-to-1 ratio versus direct marketers as the group that will be most negatively affected by the economy over the next six months. In survey 5 advertisers were selected at a 2.9-to-1 ratio as the group that will be most responsible for growth over the next 12 months.

CIMA hosted the event on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at the Westin in Chicago which included:

Overview of the survey results: Troy Mastin, Interactive Marketing Analyst
Panel Moderator: Aaron Goldman, CIMA Board Member
Panelists: Brian Mandelbaum, Vice President, Interactive Group Media Director, Cramer-Krasselt,
Michael Kahn, SVP, Marketing, Performics\VivaKi Nerve Center, Julie Wainwright, CEO, SmartNow.com, Joe Laszlo, Director of Research, Interactive Advertising Bureau