Most key media hit as ad spending slumps 9.3% in first nine months
ADVERTISING spending in the first nine months remained sluggish, dropping by 9.33 per cent to Bt76.29 billion from Bt84.19 billion in the same period last year, according to the latest survey by Nielsen (Thailand).
From January to last month, advertising spending via key media channels including television, radio, newspapers, magazines, cinema, and outdoor and in-store media dropped. TV commercials, which accounted for 63.17 per cent of total spending, suffered a 7.43-per-cent decline to Bt48.19 billion from Bt52.06 billion. However, spending via cable and satellite TV was excluded from this survey.
Newspaper adverts fell by 14.22 per cent to Bt9.49 billion from Bt11.06 billion. Radio advertising witnessed a 13.13-per-cent drop to Bt4.02 billion from Bt4.62 billion. Magazines faced a similar fate with a decrease of 16.9 per cent to Bt3.47 billion from Bt4.17 billion. Cinema adverts saw an almost 10-per-cent drop to Bt3.43 billion. Outdoor media declined by 3.51 per cent to Bt3 billion and in-store media fell by 35.18 per cent to Bt1.32 billion.
Transit media, Internet
However, advertisers appeared to keep investing in transit media and the Internet to attract specific targeted audiences. Transit advertising saw almost 3-per-cent growth to Bt2.69 billion, while spending on the Internet increased at a similar rate to Bt671 million.
Previously, the media industry anticipated growth after the country welcomed a new military-appointed Cabinet to unlock public spending that had been put on hold since last November as the Bangkok-based political unrest and boycott of new elections hamstrung the caretaker government.
Though the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission began distributing about 4.6 million digital-TV vouchers in 21 provinces this week, the broadcasting industry has forecast that it will not see any positive impacts from this until at least next year.
Kematat Paladesh, president of Bangkok Media and Broadcasting, the operator of PPTV, a terrestrial-based digital channel, expects that advertisers will wait and see what kind of increase digital-TV viewership enjoys this year.
“Next year, they might spend more to advertise on the digital TV channels, on top of what they spend via existing analog channels,” he said.
Kriangkrai Kanjanapokin, co-chief executive officer of Index Creative Village, an event organiser, suggested that advertising spending via traditional media this quarter might continue to face slow growth as companies opted to cut their ad budgets while focusing more on on-the-ground promotions to boost sales by year-end.
