With Canada's broadcast regulator in the midst of hearings on the future of TV, online video has been in the spotlight lately – both for its growing popularity among consumers, and for its perceived threat to TV networks' advertising revenues.
Players such as Google and AOL have been courting media buying agencies more aggressively and hold TV-style sales events to encourage them to spend more on ads accompanying online programming.
Advertisers are taking notice.
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Online video is now the top category, along with social media, in terms of where marketers in Canada plan to spend more in the coming year.
That's according to a report from eMarketer, based on the BrandSpark Canadian Marketers Survey completed in June. The study surveyed just over 200 marketers.
Nearly half of those surveyed said they would increase their budgets for online video and for social marketing in the next 12 months, more than any other digital category.
That's a shift from last year, when more marketers said they would spend more on their brand websites and on social marketing than on online video. And it signals the growing importance of the platform, as people's viewing habits shift to incorporate more digitally-delivered programming.
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Here are some of the numbers:
Canadian marketers who plan to increase spending in the next year
Online video: 48 per cent (up from 37 per cent in 2013)
Social marketing: 48 per cent (up from 45 per cent)
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Mobile marketing: 41 per cent (up from 36 per cent)
Corporate/brand website: 35 per cent (down from 38 per cent)
Paid search: 32 per cent (up from 26 per cent)
Online banner ads: 30 per cent (up from 29 per cent)
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Loyalty marketing/customer relationship management: 25 per cent (down from 34 per cent)
Marketing research: 22 per cent (down from 26 per cent)
Marketing automation: 19 per cent (same as last year)