Video’s share of the US online ad market will remain very small this year—just 6.9%, according to eMarketer data from March and June. Online video will be merely 3.6% of TV’s total this year. Even as online video grows rapidly over the next few years, marketers in 2015 will likely spend $100 on television ads for every $10 they spend for online video.

TV remains more of a sure thing for brand marketers. As more digital data about TV audiences becomes available to marketers through companies like Simulmedia, targeted TV ads will retain a portion of spending that might have gone to online video. Furthermore, buying online video ads tends to be more complex than buying TV commercials. Online video advertising rarely scales the way TV does, nor does it typically give comparable reach.

Note: eMarketer benchmarks its US online ad spending projections against the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)/PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) data, for which the last full year measured was 2010; online ad data includes categories as defined by IAB/PwC benchmark—banner ads (static display), classified ads, email (embedded ads only), rich media, search ads (including contextual text links, paid inclusion, paid listings and SEO), sponsorships, lead generation (referrals) and video (including in-banner, in-stream, in-text); includes mobile ad spending within existing formats, mainly search and banners. TV includes broadcast TV (network, syndication & spot) & cable TV.

A complete report, US Online Ad Spending: The Floodgates Are Open, is available for eMarketer Total Access subscribers. Learn more.

Television advertising spending in the US has bounced back from the recession, having grown 9.7% to $59 billion in 2010. This year, TV ad spending is expected to increase an additional 2.5%, reaching $60.5 billion, according to eMarketer.

Its steadying share of overall US advertising revenues suggests TV has been largely unaffected by the dramatic growth of online advertising.

For more on eMarketer’s coverage of major media ad spending, click here.

Last year, TV advertising spending in the US grew 9.7% to $59 billion, and its steadying share of overall US advertising revenues suggests TV has been largely unaffected by the dramatic growth of online advertising, according to an upcoming report by eMarketer.

To read the complete article, click here.

If there was one thing to be learned during last night’s series finale of LOST and last week’s “Upfronts” for broadcast networks—the annual confab of frenzied, glitzy presentations to advertisers of the new programming lineups for the fall 2010 TV season—it’s that despite ongoing economic woes and extreme media fragmentation, the $8.26 billion television advertising market remains a force to be reckoned with.

Still, there’s plenty of room for digital media, and increasingly, digital media commitments are part and parcel of the Upfronts as marketers look for relevant Web extensions to their broadcast media programs. Take the success of LOST online, for instance: ABC’s online episode player found huge success as the series progressed, and the show’s presence on social media was so pervasive over the final season that fans were clamoring for others to not post updates about the finale on Twitter and Facebook, should they spoil the big reveal.

As the world’s No. 2 marketer of consumer packaged goods, Unilever is one of the many businesses negoiating with networks during the Upfronts. According to Rob Master, the company’s head of North American media, Unilever is also aggressively looking to integrate digital media wherever possible.

The company recently increased spending on digital media by 90% in the first quarter of 2010, according to a report in Advertising Age. In that report, Mr. Master said “TV without question remains an important part of our media mix, but digital is clearly growing with us. It’s not just the year-over-year growth, it’s how digital has broadened for us over the past 12 months in terms of places we’re spending money today that were not nearly as robust 12 to 18 months ago, like search and social and mobile and interactive TV.” Unilever spent an estimated $7.4 billion on advertising in 2009, according to company filings. The $1.4 billion online video market is a hotspot that is bound to shift dollars away from broadcast and cable advertising budgets.

eMarketer’s Tobi Elkin recently chatted with Master and his media agency partner, Ritu Trivedi, managing director at Mindshare, about the 2011 upfront and Unilever’s perspective on digital media and marketing. Here’s a clip from the full interview, available on eMarketer Total Access. (Read more…)

Sunday’s big game between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts was nearly as splashy in social media as it was on TV.

Marketers that paid millions to advertise during the telecast also put sizeable energy into making sure that their ads had visibility on the social web. Coca-Cola Co. teamed up with Facebook to distribute Coke-themed virtual gifts and preview its Super Bowl spots for its fans. Pepsi notoriously bowed out of advertising during the game in favor of a cause-related digital marketing initiative that included a major presence on Facebook. Other marketers took to Twitter to keep their ads top of mind among consumers.

Even before the game telecast, the online buzz surrounding football star Tim Tebow’s ad for Focus on the Family was strong, according to Nielsen Co. In the two months ending January 31, the ad garnered 33.4% of all Super Bowl ad-related buzz online. Meanwhile, the NFL created a Twitter tag, #SB44, and encouraged fans to use the tag when they discussed the game.

With all the hype, what was the end result? The most-watched television event of all time. CBS estimates that the 2010 Super Bowl drew 106.5 million viewers, beating the famed 1983 “M*A*S*H” series finale, which was watched by about 105.9 million.

There’s no doubt that all the activity surrounding the Super Bowl is a signal that TV is finally getting more social, though we’re certainly not all the way there. While the coming onslaught of Internet-ready televisions will play a role, the entertainment industry has yet to figure out how to logically incorporate social media into the act of watching television. But they will.

The socialization of TV is one of eight trends that I cover in my new eMarketer Insight Brief “The Future of Social Media Marketing.” Some of my other predictions include:

• Advertising will not be the primary revenue driver for social media.
• Status updates will be key.
• Social will make search more personal—and more powerful.
• Social media monitoring will bring true insights.

“The Future of Social Media Marketing” is part of a series of eMarketer Insight Briefs focused on social media marketing. Available exclusively to Total Access subscribers, the seven briefs, along with a PowerPoint slideshow, answer the most common and most pressing questions that businesses have about social media marketing.

Total Access subscribers, log in and view the Insight Briefs now. Learn more about an eMarketer Total Access subscription today.