October sees continuing decline in ad revenue, down 6.21% year on year
ADVERTISING revenue continued to decline last month, in line with the economic conditions and cuts in spending by major advertisers.
According to Nielsen, total ad revenue in October was Bt10.24 billion, down by 6.21 per cent from Bt10.9 billion in the same month last year.
Suffering the steepest declines were in-store media, down by 85.96 per cent to Bt32 million; newspapers, down 17.34 per cent to Bt996 million; and magazines, down 17.16 per cent to Bt367 million.
Showing the most satisfactory improvements were digital TV, with an increase of 29.79 per cent to Bt1.82 billion; Internet, up 13.86 per cent to Bt115 million; and outdoor advertising, up 7.06 per cent to Bt349 million.
Nielsen found that that among top advertisers, Unilever (Thai) Holdings, Beierdorf (Thailand), Toyota Motor Thailand, L’Oreal (Thailand) and the Prime Minister’s Office cut their spending in October as compared with the same month last year.
Because of the media research firm’s revision of its database, advertising expenditure in the first 10 months indicated growth of 4.84 per cent to Bt101.78 billion from Bt97.08 billion in the same period last year.
Of total ad spending from January to last month, 47.42 per cent or Bt48.26 billion was on analog television channels, followed by 17.3 per cent or Bt17.6 billion on digital TV, 9.8 per cent or Bt10 billion on newspapers, 4.98 per cent or Bt5 billion on cable/satellite TV and 4.51 per cent or Bt4.58 billion on radio.
Previously, Rathakorn Surbsuk, trading partner at GroupM, estimated that the advertising industry would witness growth of 4-5 per cent next year, against the expectation of either flat growth or a decline of up to 5 per cent this year.
In the current quarter, business performance appears to be weak, so companies have cut their advertising budgets and reallocated the money for online strategy and promotions to boost sales, he said.
