But according to Nielsen, many of China’s advertisers took a break from advertising in August, sending overall ad spending in China tumbling to levels last seen in May 2008, when the Sichuan earthquake hit and advertising was suspended for three days.

Advertising spending in China grew, year over year, by just 7% in August, Nielsen reported Monday.  In comparison, China’s ad spending grew by an average of 19% in the seven months leading up to the Olympic Games.

In August, sponsor advertising grew by 40% — or RMB2.8 billion (US$370 million) in China, but that increase was not enough to compensate for the withdrawal of the rest of the market’s advertisers.

“This is quite unprecedented, based on our monitoring of advertising behavior and spending for previous Olympic Games.  Rather than attempt to battle it out with the Sponsors, other players opted simply to ’sit out’ the month of August,” Richard Basil-Jones, Managing Director, Media Asia Pacific, Nielsen, noted.  “With the London Games four years out, time will tell whether this was a situation unique to China, or whether in the future, other non-Sponsors will chose to sit on the side lines, leaving the Games open and clear for Sponsors to enjoy maximum cut through in an unusually uncluttered advertising environment.”

Despite the ongoing global financial turmoil, advertisers returned to China’s ad market after the Olympic Games.  In September, ad spending in China registered healthy, near pre-Games growth of 16%, according to Nielsen.

View the full press release.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in the Financial Times.

According to a survey conducted by Nielsen after the closing ceremony, seven in 10 viewers across 16 countries and territories said Beijing appeared more “modern” and “high-tech” than they had expected.

Beijing also looked cleaner and greener than many viewers expected — 56% said the city’s physical environment exceeded their expectations.

Nine in 10 foreigners who visited Beijing for the Olympics also told Nielsen the city’s Olympics venues were “good” or “very good.”

View the full press release.

Read The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of Nielsen’s findings.

The Beijing Games surpassed the old record- 209 million viewers of the 1996 Games in Atlanta- on Saturday night. Through Saturday, 211 million viewers had watched at least some of the Games on any of NBC Universal’s networks.

On Saturday, 43 million viewers tuned in to at least a portion of NBC’s coverage. The average audience from 9 to 11 p.m. on Saturday night was 16.5 million. Typically, the Games had attracted 27 million or more viewers per night leading up to Saturday.

The story noted that one McCain ad attacking Obama aired last Friday during the Olympics opening ceremony’s “parade of nations” — a procession of smiling athletes. 

According to Nielsen, that ad accounted for 30 seconds of the total 35 minutes of commercials that aired on NBC’s U.S. broadcast of the opening ceremony.

View Nielsen’s advertising data round-up for the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

Nielsen’s report also found that advertising spending in Olympic host countries grew significantly in both the U.S. and Greece in the years following the 1996 and 2004 Olympics. 

Only Australia saw declines in ad spending following the 2000 summer Games.  Those decreases can be attributed to general cutbacks in spending in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Following this year’s Olympics, ad spending in China is also expected to surge, according to Nielsen. 

In the past nine years, ad expenditures in China have increased by an average of 18% annually — the largest growth of any market worldwide.  That record puts China on track to set a new global advertising record with the Beijing Games, Nielsen’s report notes.

View an excerpt from Nielsen’s report.

Read more about the Olympics’ effect on media in Nielsen’s “Consumer Insight” newsletter.

The survey, conducted in late June, also found that the Fuwa are popular in China.  Sixty percent of respondents said they “like” or “really like” them, while more than 20% were neutral, and just 15% said they “dislike” the Fuwa.

Those who recognize the Fuwa also appear to be spending money on official Olympic merchandise featuring their images.  Fifty-seven percent of the respondents said they had purchased Olympic merchandise, and a majority of those noted that the items they purchased display the Fuwa mascots.

A popular Chinese cartoon series that features the Fuwa may have played a key role in building the Fuwa’s popularity, Richard Basil-Jones, Nielsen’s managing director of Media Research Asia Pacific, noted. 

“The high awareness of Fuwa, popularity of its merchandise and the success of the cartoon TV show have all contributed to and are a testament to the success of the creation of these mascots and the high level of engagement for the Olympics among Chinese,” Basil-Jones said.

Nielsen’s survey was conducted via Nielsen’s “Your Voice” online panel among 3,087 people age 15 and above.

View the full press release.