Permission TV commissioned a survey of 400 senior-level advertising, marketing and media executives to determine online video as a primary focus for digital marketing budgets in 2009.

A Few Key Findings:

More than two thirds of respondents (67 percent) identified online video as a primary focus of their 2009 digital marketing campaigns, versus social media campaigns (41 percent), search (34 percent) and podcasts/webcasts (32 percent).

In Q2 of 2009, more than half (52 percent) of respondents expect to be implementing or extending an online video project, whereas currently less than one-third (32 percent) are doing so.

Nearly 60 percent of respondents consider interactive video experiences to be the next evolution for online video. Also, 62 percent believe that non-linear, interactive storytelling will become the most effective medium for marketers. o Links to other videos is the most widely needed interactive capabilities for respondents, followed by graphic overlays, user comments and user-defined contents paths.

In his October article: Mobile Advertisers Demand Unified Measurement Standards, Levi Shapiro spelled out the some of the issues facing agencies and clients with respect to mobile measurement and the need for tools to quantify user viewing experiences.

You can see this lack of standardization reflected on slides one and three. On slide one 17.4% of respondents plan little to no spending for mobile. However, on slide three 49.9% of respondents see mobile as the next evolutionary step in content distribution. In addition, with the U.S. and the rest of world in recession the mobile handset market is facing a slowdown with analysts estimate a slip of 6.6% of handset sales in 2009 which will force a further downward pressure with respect to programming.

On slide two, there is an almost the same percentage of respondents 13.3% against 15.3% currently planning an online project verses those not currently planning. The picture does change in Q2 of next year with 8.6% planning an online project however, not by a wide gulf against 5.8% with no plans to implement the use of video.

According to the company, the survey was sent out on November 12th and closed on November 24th however, there were no questions specific to the impact the deep U.S. recession will have on 2009 budgets and projects, one must assume respondents built this into their answers.

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