The latest advertising spend data from the IAB for H1 2011 reported a total year on year growth of just 1.4% to £8.27billion.
Within that, online advertising was the star performer, up 14% to £2.26billion, a 27% share of the market.
Over a quarter of advertising spend in the UK is now online.
Mobile advertising was not included in this breakdown, and at Somo, as a specialist mobile marketing agency we eagerly await the growth figures for mobile to be released.
A year ago, total mobile spend was just £83million, only 2% of the total spent online and 0.5% of the entire advertising budget, according to the IAB.
Research by Barclays Corporate has suggested that in a decade, m-commerce will account for £1 of every £20 in retail sales.
UK consumers, the research said, will be spending £19.3billion a year via their mobiles and tablet devices in ten years, up from the current £1.3billion.
We live in a period where there is a gross underinvestment in mobile marketing in comparison to the time that users already spend with the medium.
Of UK mobile owners, 42% now have smartphones and more than 21 million people access the mobile web every month.
Emarketer recently revealed that US adults spend 50 minutes a day using their mobile- the same amount as reading all newspapers and magazines combined.
If customers are spending time on their phones, they are spending less time and attention with other media.
Dynamic Logic/Millward Brown have shown that mobile brand advertising has four times more positive impact on propensity to purchase than online brand advertising.
We know mobile advertising is effective on response driven ROI as well as having significant brand awareness impact.
Marketers who invest in mobile are getting a significant competitive advantage, an enhanced share of voice and a chance to forge new relationships with customers in what will be the global medium of choice in the future.
This is why Mobile marketing should be the first media added to any marketing plan for 2012.