Olympics Ad Spend Not Quite Gold Medal Worthy

Online researchers eMarketer released data on August 22nd that estimated NBC’s Olympics video advertising spend at 5.75million.

The Olympics has brought record numbers of site visitors to NBCOlympics.com as well as TV viewers to the network station.  According to Nielsen NetRatings,  the NBCOlympics.com video section pulled in a record number of unique visitors. Data released on 8/13 showed a 140% increase in traffic to the site during the first four days of the games. Also Nielsen reported that 2 billion people watched the opening ceremony - nearly 1/3 of the world’s population.

While 5.75 million is nothing to scoff at, according to eMarketer, this figure represents just over 1% of an estimated 505 million that will be spent in video advertising in the US this year.

Which begs the question of where advertisers WILL spend their online video budgets this year. My feeling is that advertisers are most likely preparing to put a large sum into the upcoming elections coverage. I suspect we’ll see ad spends on major news outlets and other elections coverage sites increase sharply towards November.

As all eyes shift towards the national party conventions and the election heats up in earnest, I’ll be checking in with the analysts and letting blog readers know how the online advertising industry fares in this last, end of year push.

Also for marketers and advertisers looking to capitalize on upcoming sporting events or the presidential elections, I suggest you check out CEO Hollis Thomases latest ClickZ column for ideas and recommendations on online event advertising.

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