Ad spending on social media still low but expected to grow
ADVERTISING spending on social media in Thailand is estimated at around US$1 billion (Bt35 billion) per year thanks to the widespread popularity of Facebook, YouTube and Line, according to Paul Spencer, managing director of Optimum Media Direction (Thaila
He said most of this spend was aimed at mobile screens and could account for as much as 15 per cent of the country’s overall advertising expenditure.
Facebook is currently the most popular social medium in Thailand with more than 30 million users compared with the country’s population of more than 60 million, followed by Line and YouTube.
According to Nielsen (Thailand), advertising expenditure last year rose to Bt122 billion, up 3.3 per cent from 2014. However, the spending on digital media, including social media, was still meagre.
Spencer said spending on Thailand’s online media was officially only 2-3 per cent of the total, but actual spending via the widely popular social media was much bigger than reported.
Stephen Li, OMD chief executive officer for the Asia-Pacific region, who covers 13 markets including China, Japan and Asean countries, agreed that social and other online media were on the rise. This has opened up new opportunities across the region on how to create ads and other content that can effectively help clients become part of people’s lives.
Mobile phones and other gadgets such as wearable watches are now people’s best friends, so advertisers have to find new ways to engage audiences while avoiding interrupting their activities.
According to Li, the trend is not to push for hard-sell tactics that may not work, but to engage audiences in a more subtle manner on multiple platforms.
However, he said television was still the medium that reaches the masses in Asia, as it currently accounts for 45 per cent of ad spending across the region, compared with 25-30 per cent for digital media.
In Thailand, TV rakes in more than half of the country’s total ad spending.
Channel 7 and Channel 3 remain in steady control of the lion’s share of TV ad spending, while new digital channels such as Workpoint, Mono and Channel 8 have witnessed a growing market share.
According to Spencer, Thailand currently has too many television channels after the granting of 24 new digital-TV licences.
However, there is a growing interest in e-commerce and TV shopping using digital-TV resources, especially among foreign operators from Japan.
