Media ShopTalk: w/c 15 March 2010

We’re at the end of the first quarter of 2010, budgets seem to have been set and planned for the January – December fiscal periods, however it seems that implementation of the plans is taking longer than usual.   

We currently have adspend data for January 2010 – and at this stage it is difficult to see where adspend is going, however we haven’t had a look at 2009 adspend and the below shows a picture that may well surprise you! We all know the pitfalls of AC Nielsen’s adspend tracking, however as it is the only source of information we have and the fact that all advertisers are faced with the same dilemma’s – you know, under reading, misclassification etc -  we can use it for broad strategic insights.    

We are not going to go into specific categories, but rather have a look at what the total adspend in South Africa has done over the past four years – January to December 2006 vs 2007 vs 2008 vs 2009.

Surprise number 1:     Total adspend has increased year on year even though 2009 was the worst economic recession experienced.   2007 was an increase of 25% on 2006, 2008 was an increase of 11% on 2007 and 2009 was an increase of 6% on 2008 – but it was an increase!

Surprise number 2:     Where has the increase come from?   Well, there has a been a definite shift in adspend from print, radio, cinema and outdoor to Television, direct mail and Internet!   It is incredible to see that internet spend has increased by 268% from 2006 to 2009 and yet it still only accounts for 1.3% of the total 2009 adspend pie!

Surprise number 3:     The number of ads being placed is just as astounding.   Who would have thought that just over 6 million advertisements were placed in 2009 compared to 4.1 million in 2006?

So whilst we all sit and wonder where we are going to see the upturn in the economy, and the world, and for those of you who joined us on Wednesday at our Media Forum to hear what Dr Azar Jammine had to say, one can’t predict what is going to happen this year.

The predictions are that we should see a definite change for the better and this will probably show in the latter part of 2009 however, in retrospect the industry hasn’t fared to badly has it?  Of course there will be those that would have liked the adspend to have increased by 25% as it did in 2007 – but let’s be realistic, it isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future!

Until next week!
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