A dive into GroupM’s volumunious 2008 Worldwide Media and Marketing Forecasts yields plenty of interesting numbers for data junkies, not least regarding internet advertising (broadly defined as search, display and directory) spend across Asia, expected in 2008 to grow to the tune of:

- Singapore - 62%
- India - 60%
- China - 55%
- Australia: 40%
- Thailand - 28%
- Hong Kong - 25%
- Taiwan - 20%
- Japan - 20%
- Indonesia - 13%
- S. Korea - 8%

Aside from the massive disparity in internet advertising growth levels across the region, some interesting themes emerge:

First, while increases in internet advertising are expected to be very strong in China and India, they will account for less than 6% and 2.5% of media spend respectively, pointing to fairly conventional marketing cultures, despite considerable web 2.0 froth in China.

Second, the deceleration of internet spend in Singapore, Japan and S. Korea. According to the report, internet spend in Singapore has been growing at over 100% for the past two years, but is working from a low base and still only accounts for approx. 3.5% of media spend, so continued investment in this area seems likely given the relative maturity of the market and the potential returns of online marketing.

But what’s going on in Japan and S. Korea, held up as two of the most technologically advanced nations?

One explanation is that search marketing is not having the impact it is having in other countries due to the dominance of display ad heavyweights Yahoo! in Japan and Naver in S. Korea, although search marketing has been growing strongly in S. Korea in the last couple of years, led by Naver (disclosure: a B-M client).

Another reason is almost certainly the popularity of social networks and social media sites in these markets - digital nuts that advertisers and ad networks (including Google AdSense) have yet successfully to crack.

And this is despite both markets being buttressed by healthy investments in mobile marketing (see also Dentsu’s take on internet advertising prospects, with mobile advertising and mobile search advertising split out).

Third, while we might expect to see stronger online growth in more ‘traditional’ media markets such as Indonesia and Thailand, internet marketing is expected to account for no more than 1.5% of media spend in either market (cf. internet advertising in the most ‘advanced’ markets - Sweden and the UK - already weighs in at 25%+ of total media share).

However, the report does not include non-’measured’ media such as website and online community development, content development (a fair amount of which is promotional in nature - think downloads for mobile phones etc), online gaming, word-of-mouth, conversational and email marketing - areas of significant investment especially in China and N. Asia given the popularity of social media, networks and online communities.

Were it to, we might be looking at an even more encouraging set of forecasts (from a digital perspective), and further food for thought for organisations as they execute their marketing plans this year.