US-based ★ Top 200 US Advertisers Accelerate Digital Strategies

Ad Age announced its annual ranking of the "Top 200 Advertisers" in the U.S. market for 2015.

The combined advertising spend of these 200 companies increased by 3.6% year-on-year, reaching a record high of $142.5 billion. The boom in the digital domain significantly offset the declining trend in mass media like television. The shift in ad spending continues from major media (mass media and internet display ads) to other, harder-to-measure media (including various digital ads like paid search, online video, and social media, plus promotions, experiential marketing, and direct marketing). The share of the 200 companies' advertising budgets allocated to these harder-to-measure media increased from 52.0% last year to 54.7%.

The top three remained unchanged from the previous year: P&G, AT&T, and General Motors. This year, Amazon and Samsung entered the top 10. Forty-one companies spent over $1 billion. DraftKings and FanDuel, rivals in fantasy sports (games where players create fictional teams using real athletes and compete based on each player's actual performance scores), both made their debut on the list, showing the rapidly growing market for fantasy sports in the US. For reference, the estimated advertising spend for top-ranked P&G in 2015 was $4.3 billion, while 200th-ranked Fitbit (fitness-related devices) spent $176 million, showing a significant gap between the two.

By industry, spending increased across all sectors except food among the 15 categories. The top growth rates were seen in Pharmaceuticals (up 15.6% year-on-year), Travel (up 10.1%), and Apparel (up 6.9%).

Source: Ad Age
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