The Interactive Advertising Bureau pegs Russia’s online advertising marketing at about $2 billion in 2016 compared with $50 billion in the United States, according to Boris Omelnitskiy, president of the IAB in Russia.
Omelnitskiy told Search Marketing Daily during the IAB Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert, California that the gap means smaller local companies have less money for research when developing technology for search and display, or processes and frameworks such as programmatic. Sometimes the Russian market must look toward those in the U.S. to support standards and solutions to overcome challenges and issues.
It means companies in local markets must work together to create a global network to thrive, he says. Omelnitskiy’s charter is to integrate the Russian market into others globally.
The Russian market has its own digital heroes, Omelnitskiy says, such as on Yandex and Mail.ru for search, and VK.com for social to find solutions, but there can be a technology gap. For example, Omelnitskiy sees about a two-year gap in the use of programmatic between Russia and the United States.
Despite Russia’s two-year lag in programmatic ad-serving and buying compared with the U.S., digital advertising continues to shift from television, print, radio and other offline media to online.
Television took 44.5% of the dollars spent in Russia in the first half of 2015, compared with 47% during the first half of 2014. Online took 30.3% in the first six months of 2015, compared with 24.9% in 2014.
Print media fell to 8.2% during the first half of 2015 from 9.7% in the same six months in 2014. Aside from digital, out of home was the only media aside from digital that grew in the first six months of 2015 to 11.2%, compared with the first six months in the prior year at 11%.
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