Google, Amazon and Apple Pump Up Ad Spending as Tablet Wars Heat Up

Looks like the battle for the hearts of consumer electronics lovers is increasingly playing out in advertisements.

Ad Age recently released its list of the Top 200 U.S. advertisers (subscription required), and the data shows that Google, Amazon and Apple all significantly boosted their budgets from 2011 to 2012.

Apple ad spending on so-called “measured media” rose 21 percent in 2012 to $662 million, from $546 million in 2011, according to an Ad Age analysis of Kantar Media data, as the iPad and iPhone maker tried to fend off Samsung, Amazon and others. Measured media includes TV, billboard, print, radio and online display advertising, but not search. That total made Apple the No. 12 largest U.S. advertiser in 2012.

Google also appeared high on the list at No. 36, thanks to a 66 percent increase in measured media ad spending in 2012 from 2011. The search giant — which is increasingly advertising other parts of its business, such as its Nexus tablet, Google+ and Chrome — spent $340 million on measured media last year, up from $205 million in 2011.

Amazon jumped to No. 68 on the list in 2012, thanks to a 58 percent increase in measured media spending. The online retail giant allocated $245 million toward measured media ad spending last year, up from $156 million in the prior year, as it continued to shine a spotlight on its Kindle family of tablets and e-readers.

At the top of the list sits AT&T, for the second year in a row. The telecom goliath spent $1.6 billion on measured media in 2012, which was actually a 14 percent decrease from the prior year. Still, as Ad Age noted, that total amounts to $5.05 for every U.S. resident, and doesn’t even include search advertising.

Despite the increased spending from Google and Amazon, Apple still sits comfortably at the top of the important tablet market, with 40 percent market share in the first quarter of this year, according to IDC.

Here’s a Christmas-centric iPad ad from late last year: