I leave this month my board position on the Australian Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) the peak trade association for online advertising in Australia that was incorporated in July 2010.

It’s been a wonderful three years representing Telstra on the IAB board with a key principal objective to collectively support and enable the media and marketing industry to ensure that the industry thrives in the Australian digital economy.

The role of the IAB is to work with its members and the broader advertising and marketing industry to assist marketers to identify how best to employ online as part of their marketing strategy, to better target and engage their customers and build their brands.

Australian online advertising spend has surged again this year delivering 33 percent year on year growth for quarter ending 30th September 2015, reaching $1.565m for the quarter.

The data, which comes from the latest IAB/PWC Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER), shows that General Display advertising was the leading sector for the quarter, achieving 53 percent year on year growth; while Classifieds grew 28 percent and Search & Directories grew 21 percent.

It’s been a very productive association and one I will miss my board members, Chairman Ed Harrison, CEO of Yahoo7 and CEO  Alice Manners some of the most experienced digital and media specialists on the globe.

Ed Harrison, Chairman of IAB Australia and CEO Yahoo7

Alice Manners, CEO of IAB Australia

A big congratulations has to go to Alice. She was unanimously appointed by the board in August 2013 as CEO of IAB Australia and has driven the organisation to many IAB Australia achievements. She drives the organisations objectives and represents and promote the interests of it’s members to continue to grow the interactive advertising industry with distinction. 

Alice has more than 20 years’ experience with online advertising industry with particular expertise in the Asia Pacific region and it’s workings. Alice before leading the IAB in Australia was an agency leader at WPP with the most recent stint as GroupM Asia Pacific COO of Interaction that became a juggernaut during her time there.

The IAB addresses the core pillars of growth of the online advertising industry and has simplified the standards of online audience measurement, research through online operational standards and guidelines, and regulatory affairs programs of work.

IAB Australia leverages the skills, experience and commitment of its board members to advocate the benefits of online advertising by acting as an authoritative and objective source for all online advertising issues whilst promoting industry-wide best practice.

In terms of the breakdown of the 33 percent year on year growth of Australian advertising spend for quarter ending 30th September 2015 that reached in total of $1.565m.  Mobile advertising expenditure increased to $418.9 million in the September quarter 2015, with 55 percent mobile advertising expenditure attributed to mobile display and 45 percent to mobile search.  Smartphones now hold 67 percent of the device category share and tablets at 33 percent.

Video advertising also maintained its strong performance, recording an increase of 107 percent year on year to reach $128.9m of the total advertising expenditure.  According to the report, FMCG now dominates video advertising with a 17 percent share which is almost three times higher than its 6.3 percent share of total General Display advertising.  The Health/Beauty/Pharmaceuticals and Motor Vehicles categories are the other leading industry categories in video display advertising.

Motor vehicles and real estate maintained their dominance of the General Display market in the September quarter 2015, representing 29.9 percent of the reported market despite a slight dip for motor vehicles share. The same two industry categories made up 27.3 percent of General Display in the equivalent prior year quarter.

According to the latest CEASA analysis, for the six months ending June 2015, online advertising accounts for 41.3 percent of total advertising revenue, up from 36 percent last report.