“With the jump in consumer confidence last year, advertisers joined in the race to capture opportunities that came from improved consumer sentiment. Large-scale events such as the World Cup, promotion for local festivals and aggressive product promotions also boosted advertising spend and led to a strong finish for the year,” said Danyal Abdul Malik, Managing Director, Nielsen Audience Measurement, The Nielsen Company.

Newspapers continued to attract the bulk of total ad spending, capturing 51 percent of all Ringgit spent and totaled RM 3.9 billion. Top spenders in the broadsheets were hypermarkets, local governments, universities and furniture retailers.

The total spent on TV advertising was RM 2.9 billion, driven by increases in categories such as laundry detergent, hair shampoo and conditioner, bath additives, fast food and hair care. Radio advertising spend hit RM 409 million, as players in banking/finance, university, automotive, non-alcoholic beverages as well as newspapers and magazines stepped up promotional activities in 2010. The main contributors to the jump in in-store advertising were growth categories such as laundry detergent, snacks and credit cards, while phone and accessories, mobile line services and real estate agent categories fueled the growth in Internet advertising growth.

On a category basis, mobile phone services pushed into first place in 2010, with local governments, women’s facial care, hair shampoo and conditioners and fast food restaurants rounding out the top five. Laundry detergent posted the highest growth during the year, up 61 percent in 2010 from the year before.

Top 10 Total Ad Spending Industries (TV/Newspaper/Magazine/Radio)
While total ad spending (combined TV, Newspaper, Magazine and Radio) in the toiletries, beverages and pharmaceuticals industries topped the list for the biggest quarterly outlay, the automotive industry tops the list for the biggest year-over-year increase of 37%. Ad spending in the Foodstuffs, Retail & Service and Household industries are also showing healthy increases compared to year ago spending.

The pharmaceutical industry decreased spending in quarters one and two, down 11% and 2% respectively, due largely to a cutback on television advertisements.

Top 10s by Advertising Sector

“It will be quite a stretch for business leaders to expect double-digit growth when Vietnam’s 2010 GDP is estimated to be at a modest 5.5 percent,” said Vaughan Ryan, Director at The Nielsen Company Vietnam.  “But the sentiment shared by business leaders shows that there is good momentum among many industries, especially fast moving consumer goods, and they’ve planned well to ride out the recession and even see growth where many businesses are copping losses.”

Competitive pressure and growth targets are business leaders’ top concerns, with 68 percent, followed by the ability to pass on price increases (45%), inflation (42%) and low GDP growth (31%).  More than two-thirds (70%) believe business conditions have improved versus a year a go, in contrast to just 40 percent who said the same in the March edition of the survey.

While there has been a lot of talk over the past year about the move towards premium products and services by the increasingly-affluent Vietnamese, 48 percent of business leaders believe that consumers will move towards purchasing on promotion and 31 percent believe consumers will “trade down” to cheaper products over the next six to twelve months.

Many businesses around the world focus on urban consumers, however in Vietnam, appealing to rural consumers – who make up more than 70 percent of the total population – is critical to renewed growth.  Almost 80 percent of businesses claim that they will look to the rural markets to further growth compared to 64 percent in the previous edition of the survey.

“Unlike the rest of the world, rural Vietnam is in many cases growing faster than urban areas.  It’s crucial for businesses to have a strong presence there.  In some cases, rural value growth rates has surpassed urban by as much as 9 percent versus a year ago in certain consumer goods categories,” said Ryan.

As a result of this optimism, advertising spending is expected to post a strong increase.  Half of all business leaders surveyed said they expected to increase ad spend (up from 39% in March).  All media are likely to benefit – TV (29%), point-of-sale materials (55%), print (27%), in-store banners (44%) and outdoor posters (20%).  Most notably, business is expected to increase ad spend online by 54 percent over the next six to twelve months.

Automotive was still the largest spending product category  for Spanish-Language media ($381.7 million), despite a 40 percent cut in spending compared to the previous 12 months. Wireless Telephone Services (+4.8%), Quick Service Restaurants (+10.1%) and Direct Response Products (+18.1%) each saw an increase in Spanish-Language ad spend and fell within the top five product categories.

TOP 5 SPANISH-LANGUAGE MEDIA AD SPENDERS, PRODUCT CATEGORIES

Automotive’s African-American media budget saw a 33.5 percent plunge compared to the previous 12 months, even as it continued to top all other product categories. Quick Service Restaurants (-6.4%), Department Stores (-20.1%), Motion Pictures (-20%), and Wireless Telephone Services (-16.7%) rounded out the top five African-American ad spenders, despite each chopping their ad budgets.

TOP 5 AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEDIA AD SPENDERS, PRODUCT CATEGORIES

Download Nielsen’s full report on Multi-Cultural ad spending.

“While most overseas advertising markets were already in meltdown by mid 2008, the impact was not clearly evident in Australia until later in the year. When consumer and business confidence was declining in late November and exports /commodities trading were drying up, rapidly softening economic conditions led to more cutbacks in jobs, and for many organisations, forensic cutbacks in advertising activity,” said Peter Cornelius, Managing Director Media for The Nielsen Company Pacific.

Not surprisingly, main media ad spend activity reflected this spiralling demand trend, with the financial year finishing an estimated 6.2% behind the corresponding period in 07/08.  However, the 08/09 financial year was really a tale of two halves. The first half (July – Dec ‘08) was down only 2.3% on the same period in 2007. The second half of the financial year (Jan -Jun ‘09) took the full brunt of the economic downturn with a decrease of almost 11% versus the same period in 2008. It is this ‘low’ base the industry will be watching very closely as media trading improves in line with the much anticipated future economic recovery.

Ad Spending in Australia’s main media, FY 08/09 vs. FY 07/08

Major Advertising Categories Overview

The top 10 Major advertising categories account for 71 cents in every main media ad dollar invested and provide vital indicators on the health of the advertising and media markets.

This is particularly significant when reviewing retail, Australia’s largest category which accounted for more than 21percent share of media spending. The Government’s stimulus packages in early 2009 helped renew confidence among retailer advertisers who promoted heavily to encourage consumer sales. Remarkably, in this economic downturn, retail advertising recorded a minimal 1.1 percent decline YOY to $2 billion.

Australia’s Top Advertiser Groups / Advertisers Overview

The Top 25 advertisers accounted for 21 cents of every main media advertising dollar invested in the financial year. The sectors which were most representative of this elite group of advertisers were Retailers (5), FMCG (4), Motor Vehicles (4), Governments (4) and Telecommunications (2).

The country’s dominant media advertiser group was Wesfarmers Limited, incorporating some of Australia’s foremost retail chains including Coles Supermarkets, Target, Kmart, Bunning’s Hardware, Officeworks and Liquorland. The group finished the financial year with an estimated $220 million spend, just 2.1percent behind 07/08.

Harvey Holdings was the 2nd ranked top Advertiser and performed strongly in what was considered a difficult year for Retailing and advertising generally. With a 4.6 percent increase to an estimated $135 million spend, the group lifted 2 spots from 4th position last year. Also stepping up two positions was 3rd ranked Woolworths Limited, substantially increasing their main media advertising presence by 8.7 percent to $134 million.

Will there be an early Australian advertising recovery?

At the time of writing in September 2009, the financial analysts’ debate continues as to whether Australia ever was officially in recession, although strong retail figures suggest that this may have saved the economy from tipping into one. However, Australia’s economy appears to have begun to rebound with greater speed and resilience than most overseas markets. There remains a cautious attitude among media and marketing sectors about a significant recovery before the end of 2009.  However, as our fiscal year ad spend estimates reflect, and taking into account a soft first six months of 2009, advertising activity may need time to recover and rise into the black.

Certainly, our studies support the theory that those who advertised through the tough times have maintained their competitive advantage as the economic climate improves. Marketing dollars spent during a downturn have less competition for eyeballs, so those who cutback may face even bigger challenges winning back consumers’ hearts and minds.

Toward the end of 2008, the global downturn was adversely impacting advertising spending throughout many key markets around the world, with Europe and the Americas struggling more than others.  The exception to this was Asia Pacific (APAC), which appeared to be relatively impervious to the worst of the downturn. Beginning in late 2008, and escalating as the first quarter of 2009 unfolded, the majority of APAC markets were finally succumbing to declining economic conditions with substantial declines in advertising activity. Hand-in-hand with consumer confidence declining further in the new year, most APAC countries witnessed substantial ad spend cutbacks; although still not resembling the severity of those experienced in some other regions.

“While the flow on effect of the financial meltdown on individual countries’ advertising was beginning to bite across several markets late in 2008, it is the sobering results for the first quarter of 2009 which present a clearer picture of how advertising expenditure across the region was faltering. Main media measured across all markets, defined by Nielsen as free to air TV, newspapers and magazines, stalled at 0 percent growth compared to the first quarter of 2008. Even China, the juggernaut of advertising growth globally over recent years, was not immune to the faltering economic outlook, recording just 2 percent growth over the same period in 2008 and recording 17 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2008,” said Richard Basil-Jones, Managing Director for Asia Pacific, Nielsen Media International.

“Although six markets recorded declines in the fourth quarter of 2008, overall growth was 10%; however, with nine countries now in decline in 2009, the zero growth in ad spending was not unexpected. On a slightly more positive note, all “other media” tracked by Nielsen across various countries (radio, outdoor, pay TV, cinema and other combined) posted an overall 1.3 percent increase in Q1 2009,” he added.

 Nine countries recorded declines in Q1 ‘09 ad spend versus Q1 ‘08:

• Thailand        -1% 
• Malaysia        -3%
• New Zealand  -4%
• India             -6%
• Australia        -11%
• Singapore      -14%
• South Korea   -19%
• Taiwan          -22%
• Hong Kong     -5%

Just three countries showed growth in Q1 ‘09 ad spend versus Q1 ‘08:

• Indonesia (20%)
• China (2%)
• Philippines (8%)

Other key findings:

•  Across the twelve markets monitored, a total of US$23.5 billion was spent on advertising in Q1 ‘09
• A total of US$109.16 billion was spent on “Main Media” advertising in the 12 months to March ‘09 (+9%) YOY, with television comprising 71 percent of expenditures.
• FTA Television ad spending grew 9 percent YOY; with six countries posting double-digit growth as four countries recorded declines.
• Newspaper ad spending recorded a modest 2 percent growth YOY, even though the medium experienced declines in six countries.
• Magazine ad spending, despite declines in 7 countries, increased 2 percent YOY, with high double digit growth in 4 countries.
• Radio dominated the “all other media” tracked by Nielsen, with a 51 percent share of spend and a 5 percent increase YOY.