Submissions for Adman Awards slump 20%

“The decrease in entries this year was a direct result of the uncertain economic and political situations during the first half,” AAT president On-Usa Lamliengpol said yesterday. “Some major firms suspended their advertising and marketing budgets, while some major companies allocated their advertising investment to other forms of communication, particularly digital media.” 

For this year’s Adman Awards and Symposium, the judges received 762 entries from 55 advertising and creative agencies. That was down from 956 entries last year, and it was considered the first drop in the past three years.

The two-day symposium ended yesterday.

The entries in the radio advertisement category faced a big drop of 50 per cent to 53 from 107 last year, followed by integrated marketing communication, marketing activities, television commercials and advertising planning and strategy. 

With 143 entries in the digital media category, this segment was among the top highlights for this year’s event. Other categories were out-of-home and print media. 

“Slow economic growth and changing consumer behaviour clearly paved the way for digital media to rise side by side with TV and print media in order to expand the consumer base,” On-Usa said.

Weerachon Weeraworawit, chairman of the judging panel for Adman Awards and Symposium 2014, said Thai advertising work was moving in the same direction as the global industry. 

“We have seen a new style of advertising – strong characters, and new presentation ideas combining new elements are being used widely in new types of media such as digital and social media for winning new business,” he said.

 

Drop in TV ads 

According to Nielsen (Thailand)’s latest media spend survey, from January to August, total advertising spending suffered a 9.24-per-cent decrease to Bt67.57 billion. Advertising via TV witnessed a 7-per-cent drop to Bt42.88 billion. Radio advertising dropped 14 per cent to Bt3.51 billion. 

Newspaper advertising saw a 14.5-per-cent decline to Bt8.37 billion; magazine ads dropped 17.46 per cent to Bt3 billion; cinema ads decreased 9.8 per cent to Bt3 billion; outdoor media decreased 3.19 per cent to Bt2.67 billion; and in-store media fell 36 per cent to Bt1.14 billion. 

During the period, only transit media and Internet advertising were still on the rise. Transit media enjoyed 3.18-per-cent growth to Bt2.36 billion while advertising on the Internet grew only slightly, by 0.5 per cent to Bt586 million.

However, the AAT president believes that the advertising industry will improve in the fourth quarter after the country welcomed a new Cabinet, which is expected to approve advertising budgets for government agencies. 

Meanwhile, live telecasts of the Incheon Asian Games and related marketing activities will also be a key driver for the advertising industry in the remaining months of the year.