Ad spending up 8 per cent

Ad spending via magazines continued to shrink, contracting by 15.51 per cent to Bt3.24 billion from Bt3.84 billion a year ago.

Although television remained the biggest part of the industry with Bt45 billion, increasing 3.23 per cent from last year’s Bt43.6 billion, its market share slipped from 60.75 per cent last year to 58 per cent this year.

An industry source said TV ad revenue continued to grow as airtime rates were hiked by broadcasters.

From January to last month, newspaper ads witnessed a 3.76-per-cent rise to Bt9.96 billion from Bt9.59 billion, followed by cinema ads, up 65.54 per cent to Bt8 billion from Bt4.8 billion, and radio ads, up 4.73 per cent to Bt4.11 billion from Bt3.92 billion.

Companies continued to allocate their ad budgets to out-of-home media. Outdoor media was higher by 7.57 per cent to Bt3.04 billion from Bt2.82 billion last year, in-store media surged 79.5 per cent to Bt1.9 billion from Bt1 billion and transit media increased by 8.94 per cent to Bt1.87 billion from Bt1.72 billion.

The Internet remained popular, with ad spending climbing by 23 per cent in the first eight months to Bt383 million from Bt311 million. Internet ads, as surveyed from the front pages of 30 leading websites, accounted for 0.5 per cent of the industry.

Katika Saiseni, head of digital at Mindshare Thailand, told The Nation earlier this year that digital spending via the Internet, mobile applications, online campaigns and other new media would reach Bt2 billion, or 2 per cent of overall media spending.

However, last month, newspaper ads saw a 1.5-per-cent decrease to Bt1.24 billion from Bt1.26 billion.

This was the first drop in newspaper advertising since April, when the economy was recovery from last year’s devastating flood.