Ben Ayers

Online ad spend in Europe is set to double in value and volume by 2012, according to research group Forrester.

They say the value of online ads will rise to $22 billion over the next few years, up from $11 billion last year, and that the market share of online advertising would increase from its current 9% to 18%.

The U.K. is set to see the greatest rise, ahead of Germany and France.

Europeans spend more time online (14.3 hours a week) than they do watching television or reading according to their research, and the 36% of people who go online said they spent less time watching TV as a result, making the Internet a more and more vital ad market. 52% of Europeans are now regularly online.

Smart companies are also pumping a bit more money into their online PR operations as they realise the the online environment presents even more places to tout their wares.

With the lines between PR and marketing increasinly blurred and warped on line, it’s difficult to know where one dept starts and another ends. It’s all good though. With more brains collectively thinking about how they operate in the online space the results can be quite surprising - and are almost always very creative.