Procter & Gamble Moving Ads Online from TV – in Russia at Least

At these hard times it is absolutely fascinating watching the largest advertisers making their strategic decisions on how they will handle their marketing, especially now that we are all wondering if internet advertising will still remain healthier than other mediums and if it has any chances of growing as the web publishers tend to hope.

Here in Russia Procter & Gamble is one of the largest advertisers as one tends to see ads of Tide, Duracell, Always, and Pampers every time you happen not to switch to another channel when a commercial break begins. To the contrary, I have not seen many ads of the manufacturer’s products online on Russian-language sites though I have to admit that I am not really a very frequent visitor of the sites that could serve health and personal care products ads to their target audience.

But the big news for the Russian internet segment is that Procter & Gamble has made a strategic decision to reconsider their advertising structure and increase their digital advertising spend by 20% in 2009. A representative of a branding and PR agency working with P&G in Russia told this in a radio interview yesterday and I believe this must be exciting news for many web publishers that will be able to grab their share from something that promises to be a significant amount of money.

The official reason is simple and straightforward: Procter & Gamble believes they will be able to achieve similar or comparable results targeting online viewers but the expenses will be lower which is very important during the current global financial crisis. And here in Russia such decisions of advertisers are even more logical than anywhere else in the world as TV advertising rates grew by 70% in 2008 (against the projected 55%) while the internet advertising agencies here promised to keep their rates stable throughout the next year.

I definitely think this is a great move for the Russian internet advertising industry and I also hope this strategic decision will be replicated in other countries. And since P&G was the largest US advertiser last year (according to Nielsen), this might be very important for the overall advertising industry - internet included.

Besides, I think we should not forget that in the period of the Great Depression back in 1930^th it was Procter & Gamble that helped the radio industry grow thanks to the newly-invented soap operas. I wonder if this strategic decision (if taken globally) will mean that we will see some exceptionally high growth of the internet advertising in this recession - thanks to Procter & Gamble again - or at least some new form of internet marketing and advertising?

Via (in Russian)