Print advertising feels the pinch as UAE market softens
Advertisers less convinced about effectiveness of medium
The UAE publishing industry is continuing to suffer as advertisers cut back their budgets in an increasingly cautious market.
The ad market has softened over the past 18 months as low oil prices and regional instability weakens commercial and consumer confidence.
“The people that suffer the most is the print [and] the outdoor media,” Roy Haddad, Middle East and North Africa director at advertising giant WPP, told Gulf News yesterday.
The soft sentiment, said to be the worst since 2009, is expected to remain in the second half of 2016 with the oil price continuing to trade below $50 (Dh183.50) a barrel compared to close to $115 a barrel almost two years ago. “Starting from last year it’s been a quiet period,” Abu Dhabi Media chief commercial officer Abdul Wahed Juma told Gulf News yesterday.
State-owned Abu Dhabi Media is the publisher of Englishlanguage newspaper The National and Arabic daily Al Itihad. It also owns and operates six radio stations and seven television channels, among other online and print publications.
Double digit growth
Appetite for television advertising is flat and there has been a marginal increase in radio advertisements, whilst Abu Dhabi Media has recorded a double digit growth in digital advertising.
“People are cutting budgets in marketing but they are also moving budgets,” Juma said.
Yesterday, WPP-owned Kantar Media announced that the UAE’s National Media Council and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority had backed its method of auditing television audiences in the country.
Haddad said the method would give broadcasters, particularly fringe television channels, a better way to measure their viewership and sell advertisements.
“People can start buying more cleverly than what they are doing currently. Rather than doing blanket buys they can do target buys,” he said.
Abu Dhabi Media and other state-owned companies, including etisalat, supported the audit.