BBC spent £1.4m in a year on digital ads

The BBC spent about £1.4m on digital display advertising and £220,000 on paid-search marketing in the financial year up to the end of March 2010. These figures – revealed after a freedom of information request – form part of the corporation's marketing budget of £93.3m for the financial year 2009/10, which was cut back by £4.3m for the current financial year. The BBC's marketing budget has been reduced along with spending elsewhere at the broadcaster. The BBC said most of its digital marketing activity is delivered at little or no cost, citing a presence on Twitter, refining web pages for search engine optimisation and on-site marketing messages assisting user navigation. Digital display advertising includes standard banners and buttons, as well as rich-media advertising including animation and video. The corporation said that it occasionally used paid-for digital marketing where "it is especially able to reach particular discrete groups". A BBC spokesman said: "Audiences want us to inform them about upcoming BBC content, and the vast majority of our marketing spend is on BBC channels and platforms. We occasionally use other types of marketing such as digital display when this is the best way of reaching audiences with the BBC content they want to see." Earlier this month, the BBC launched a major advertising campaign to promote the new-look iPlayer catchup service. The BBC upped its game in the advertising market about 10 years ago under the stewardship of the then director general Greg Dyke, who believed the corporation needed to promote its offerings in a similar way to its commercial rivals. The global paid-for search advertising market, dominated by Google, surpassed the £2bn mark for the first time in March this year. The digital display advertising market in the UK was down 5% year-on-year. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".