Media feels the pain of sharp decline in corporate spending

The decline in ad spending was felt in many mainstream media, including television, which saw a 7.5-per-cent drop year-on-year to Bt4.1 billion for the month; radio (down 18.5 per cent to Bt497 million); newspapers (down 13.6 per cent to Bt1.1 billion); magazines (down 26.09 per cent to Bt356 million), billboards (down 7.4 per cent to Bt323 million); and in-store media (down 35.05 per cent to Bt63 million).

Cinema advertising, however, grew by 33.5 per cent year-on-year to Bt438 million in June.

Transit media grew by 30.9 per cent to Bt148 million, while Internet ad spending grew 46.15 per cent to Bt19 million.

Nielsen also reported that total media expenditures dropped 5.11 per cent to Bt41.9 billion in the first six months of this year.

Television expenditures drop-ped 1.61 per cent in the first six months to Bt24.8 billion; radio |was down 13.4 per cent to Bt2.8 billion; newspapers were down 14.6 per cent to Bt6.3 billion; maga-zines fell 14.8 per cent to Bt2.4 billion, and billboards saw a drop of |7.5 per cent to Bt1.9 billion in the period.

Growth was seen in some media in the first half, including cinema advertising, which grew by 3.26 |per cent to Bt2.09 billion in the |first six months; transit media |(up 29.6 per cent to Bt892 mil-lion); point-of-sale in-store me-|dia (up 0.25 per cent to Bt403 million); and Internet advertising, which grew 9.09 per cent to Bt96 million.

Suphanee Dechaburananon, deputy chairman and director of trading and strategy for media agency Group M, expected full-|year media expenditures to see a |big decline of between 6 and 8 per cent.

Faced with lower consumer spending power, many companies, particularly in the mobile-phone, housing-estate and automobile sectors, are expecting big drops in profit, the executive said. Subsequently, they have cut their budgets for TV commercials.

"The advertising industry in |the second half of this year will |see some negative factors, including the ongoing political problems, the rising price of oil, and the overall economic recession," Suphanee said.

Many vendors have launched short-term promotions to drive sales, she said, while also reducing expenditures on mainstream media. Firms are also directing budgets to new media such as satellite and cable TV, which are more precisely targeted than mass media, she said.

"I project full-year media expenditures to decline by 8 per cent this year," Suphanee said.

According to Nielsen, the top-five spenders on media are Unilever, which spent Bt2.3 billion on ad-|vertising in the first six months of this year, down Bt26 million from the same period last year; Beiersdorf (Bt993 million, up Bt410 million); Loreal (Bt802 million, up Bt199 million); Procter & Gamble (Bt691 million, down Bt10 million); and AIS (Bt652 million, up Bt52 million).