European Take-up of Digital Marketing

A survey conducted by DoubleClick and Benchmark Research shows that the use of digital marketing is more advanced in the UK than the rest of Europe with France lagging many other European countries. Digital marketing includes the Internet, mobile devises and interactive television.

The research was based on interviews with over 3,000 marketing consultants with total on - and offline marketing spending of over £500,000 per year. The breakdown of respondents was 1,000 each for Germany and the UK, 500 from France and Spain, 250 from Scandinavia and 150 from Italy.

The table below shows that 73% of marketers in the UK claim to use digital marketing, followed by 65% in Spain. Use in Scandinavia is 34% while France lags behind with just 20%. It appears French marketers' reluctance to go online is mainly due to their over-reliance on traditional marketing and ad. agencies. Sinead Deegan of DoubleClick states "French agencies have been slow to change from their offline profit base so they don’t feel it's in their interest to encourage clients to go online"

Neither is this situation likely to change in the next 18 months with less than one percent of French marketers expecting to increase their digital marketing spend. This contrasts sharply with Spain where digital marketing expenditure is likely to rise among 95% of firms interviewed.

The survey also revealed the adoption of e-mail marketing across Europe, with 31% of marketers using e-mail over other online techniques. The UK was the leader with 58%.

Based on: Anonymous (2001) UK leads Europe in Digital Marketing Take-up, Marketing Week, November 29, 52.