Media bear the brunt as firms squeeze their Ad budgets

Total ad expenditure has been flat in the first seven months of this year at Bt51.4 billion.

Many consumer-product giants, telecom companies and carmakers have set back ad spending until the economic and political atmosphere improves and the market stabilises.

ModerNine Television recently increased the percentage of entertainment programmes it broadcasts from 34 per cent to 40 per cent to expand its viewer base from children and adults to teenagers, first jobbers and women, who prefer entertainment.

Programme producers Media of Medias and GMM Grammy have expanded into new media such as satellite and cable television and Internet radio to compensate for sluggishness in the conventional arena.

Nielsen's report shows cinema ad spending posted the biggest decline - 20 per cent to Bt400 million in July compared to the same month of 2007, followed by magazine and outdoor ad expenditure, which dropped by 15.8 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively to Bt414 million and Bt344 million.

In-store ad expenditure posted a year-on-year drop of 7.8 per cent to Bt47 million, while newspaper ad expenditure declined 6.1 per cent to Bt1.2 billion.

Television dropped by 5.4 per cent to Bt4.2 billion.

Radio and transit ads are two media witnessing growth. The expenditure on radio ads increased by 15.2 per cent to Bt606 million in July while expenditure on transit ads increased by 34.5 per cent to Bt109 million.

Year-to-date expenditure on outdoor advertising dropped 4.6 per cent to Bt2.4 billion in the first seven months of this year, followed by magazine ads, which dropped by 4.2 per cent to Bt3.2 billion during the first seven months.

Cinema ad expenditure declined 3 per cent to Bt2.3 billion in the first seven months and television ads dropped 1.4 per cent to Bt29.5 billion.

Expenditure on transit ads jumped dramatically by 59.7 per cent year-to-date to Bt797 million in the period. Expenditure on radio advertising increased 10.5 per cent year-to-date to Bt3.8 billion.

In-store ad expenditure increased 7.2 per cent to Bt340 million and expenditure on newspaper advertising increased slightly by 0.7 per cent Bt8.7 billion.

Unilever, the consumer-product giant and the largest media spender, cut expenditure from Bt3.3 billion last year to Bt2.7 billion in the same period this year.

Procter & Gamble reduced its media spending in the first seven months of this year to Bt861 million, down from Bt892 million posted in the corresponding period last year.

Advance Info Service, the country's leading mobile-phone network operator, cut ad spending to Bt678 million, down from Bt934 million spent in the first seven months of last year.

The company cut spending to Bt80.4 million in July alone.