In the winning TV ad, streets are occupied by hamsters running in place on exercise wheels until a red Kia Soul pulls up to a stoplight as the passenger window rolls down to reveal a trio of music-loving hamsters who have found “A New Way to Roll.”

The ad was found most effective by Nielsen’s panel of 2.5 million television viewers who answered questions about how much they remembered about the programs and commercials they watched the previous evening throughout the past year. Only TV ads that launched in 2009 were eligible for nomination.

“Our data show that truly effective advertising starts with a great creative idea,” said Lois Miller, President of Nielsen Automotive. “When you combine that idea with a memorable and unique hook that grabs the viewer’s attention, you are going to get the results that we saw from Kia this year.”

This was the fourth year of Nielsen’s Automotive Advertising Awards, which were once again held at the opening breakfast of the New York International Auto Show. Nielsen also distributed awards to Ford for “Green Ad of the Year” and to Toyota for “Sales Event Campaign of the Year.”

The Social Media Effect
But it was Kia whose ad stood out as the best of the best. To maximize its success on TV, the company carried the message to social media, which is now becoming standard practice for marketers both in and out of the auto industry.

“Even before we could get our own copy of the ad online, fans had already found it and posted it on YouTube,” said Michael Sprague, Kia’s Chief Marketing Officer. “Within a couple of months we saw that the ad had a total of over a million online views.”

As Nielsen’s Miller is quick to point out, consumers aren’t just viewing videos on the web; they’re talking about them as well.

“Social media is a living, breathing channel and many companies are scrambling to understand it,” said Miller. “Fortunately, Nielsen can measure social buzz and can give insight into whether marketers are creating positive or negative sentiment in these spaces.”

Watch Automotive marketers and consumers discuss social media’s impact

Whether viewed online or over the airwaves, consumers were able to connect – and connect positively – to Kia’s marketing effort. And that means TV and Internet audiences haven’t seen the last of those hamsters.

“We never envisioned this ad being as popular and effective as it’s become,” said Sprague. “Stay tuned. You’re going to see more hamsters coming this summer.”

The overall outcome of 2009 advertising is the result of totally different behaviors within the regions. Asia Pacific inverted the downturn quite early in the year and, since quarter two, has been the only region to show growth compared to 2008 (+6.6%). Europe, which is still below the levels of the previous year (-4.9%), showed improvement in the second half of the year and moved to the positive side of the scale in the last quarter of the year. North America shows the largest percentage decline versus the previous year (-9.4%) and, though the percentage decrease is more contained in the last quarter, the level of expenditure has not matched that of 2008 yet.

The declines reported quarter after quarter however, were gradually more contained, with the second half of the year giving more significant signs of improvement and the last quarter of 2009 actually showed growth.

“Despite ad spend declining overall in 2009, the final part of the year showed growth – a good sign of things to come this year,” said Ben van der Werf, Managing Director of Nielsen Global AdView. “But, while the first half of 2009 compares to a fairly strong, pre-crisis beginning of 2008, the second half of the year compares to a weaker end of 2008, which may ‘inflate’ the growth. In addition, having to react to the loss of advertising revenue, many media owners started applying much more aggressive discount policies which may not always be reflected in the trends reported at rate-card prices. If it is true therefore that signs of recovery can be seen, there should be more care in evaluating the extent of such recovery.”

With this in mind, it is clear that the last six months of the year started to provide some relief to the industry, with Television benefiting the most. Radio managed to close the year with the same amount of ad revenue gathered in 2008. Print on the other hand had the worst of the four major media types, with Magazines taking the bigger hit. Though not included in the global trends, Internet was the only media type to see ad revenue growth in the majority of the countries where it is tracked, and was often the only one to register a positive trend when the more traditional media suffered declines.

Despite crisis, some sectors increased ad budgets
With the economic crisis impacting more or less all industries, the advertisers have been cutting ad budgets throughout the year, no matter which industry branch they belong to. Three of the eleven reported macro-sectors have however spent overall more than they did in 2008, while all others have been reducing their advertising spend. FMCG (+10.6%), Healthcare (+6.1%) and Distribution Channels (+4.2%) are the three larger contributors to the growth. Automotive (-15.1%), Clothing & Accessories (-11.6%) and Financial (-11.4%) are on the other hand showing the largest percentage decreases and report declines in all regions. Telecommunications showed growth in the North American region, but this is not sufficient to balance up the advertising cut backs in Asia Pacific and Europe. Durables and Entertainment are investing more than they did last year in Asia Pacific and cut their budget in Europe less than they did in North America.

Slight improvement in the fourth quarter
The last three months of the year did bring some relief. The advertising market closed with a 4.5 percent growth versus the same quarter 2008 and marks the only positive sign of the whole year. This path is common to the majority of the countries. However, some major markets like USA, Japan, Italy and Spain are still showing percentage declines, though more contained than in the previous three quarters. The global 4.5 percent growth is driven by Asia Pacific (+12.0%) and Europe (+2.6%), while the North American advertising spend is still below the levels of the last three months of 2008. All media types except for Magazines benefit from the growth and show positive trends compared to the last three months of 2008.

The automotive industry was the top spender ($3.68 billion), despite a 31% cut over last year. Local auto dealerships – also a perennial top-10 spending category – cut its ad budget 26% through June this year.

TOP TEN PRODUCT CATEGORIES, BY AD SPEND

It wasn’t all bad news for the advertising industry this year. Cable TV was the only media category to see added spending with a 1.5% surge overall and a 0.6% increase for Spanish Language Cable TV. Quick Service Restaurants - the second highest-spending industry – spent $2.2 billion in the first half of ‘09, thanks to a 5% increase over the first half of 2008. And spending on multi-function cell phones more than doubled to almost $233 million.

“While some of the larger categories have cut back spending, we see others that continue to raise the ante on their media investments,” said Annie Touliatos, VP for Nielsen’s advertising information services. “What’s interesting is that we’re not just seeing a rise in spending for recession-friendly products like fast food restaurants.  We’re seeing a lot more promotion of technological innovations like smartphones, computer software, and consumer-driven web sites. These advertisers see potential for their products despite our stressed economy and are leveraging advertising to drive their success.”

Read Nielsen’s complete release on Q2 Ad Spend.

Nielsen’s Guide To March Madness, tracks a range of consumer and media information surrounding the event including advertising trends and demographic reach of the multi-week event. Ad buys for CBS’s coverage of the NCAA Tournament have risen steadily over the last five years – from $434 million in 2004 to $580 million in 2008 – a surge of almost 34 percent.  Spending for the Final Four Championship game has grown 47 percent over the last five years.  Last year’s final game saw $97.5 million in advertising, with the cost of a 30-second commercial over $1 million.

Over the last five years, General Motors has spent the most on ads with a total of $317 million. Last year, the auto company was the top spender, with $64.7 million in spending.

The automotive category was the top-spending category for each of the last five years.  Last year, automotive was top, followed by financial – investment services, fast food restaurants, wireless phone services and beer.

Scoring With Fans?

Are these advertisers reaching their targets?  According to Scarborough Sports Marketing, a joint venture between Nielsen and Arbitron, the answer is a resounding “yes.”  Viewers and listeners of the tournament are likely to be male, educated and married.  They have higher than average annual household incomes and and a wide range of interests, hobbies and consumer preferences:

An NCAA Fan Is…

• 10 percent more likely to have visited a casino in the last year
• 17 percent more likely own three or more vehicles in their household
• An avid fast food consumer, and is 34 percent more likely than the average adult to have visited a fast food chain 10 or more times in a week
• 33 percent more likely to have consumed any beer in the last month, with Bud Lite, Budweiser and Corona the leading brands in the light domestic,  regular domestic and imported categories.

Download Nielsen’s complete Guide To March Madness