Billings & Advertising
Adex picked up in September compared with August
Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia (4As) president Tony Savarimuthu says the improved adex figures for September are within expectations.
Aslight boost in ad spend, driven by improved sentiment, has helped pushed advertising expenditure (adex) in September.
According to data and information and measurement firm Nielsen, year-on-year adex rose 10% to RM922.1mil last month.
“This is definitely better than the marginal 0.8% increase recorded in August, which seems to indicate that spending has picked up due to improved sentiment,” says an industry observer.
For the January-September period, adex rose 3.2% to RM8.02bil.
Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia (4As) president Tony Savarimuthu says the adex figures are within expectations.
“It is within expectations as strong brands, like Maxis, have been investing significantly,” he tells
StarBizWeek.
Omnicom Media Group managing director Andreas Vogiatzakis feels that September’s adex numbers could have been slightly better.
“We were expecting a higher increase, especially due to the Euro (European Football Championship in June) and the Olympics, as well as the general election (which was a highly speculative timing).
“However, this did not materialise due to a very slow recovering economy and troubled waters in the world financial arena. All in all, the overall spend levels were rather disappointing. We hope for a more robust fourth quarter, but we do not expect the year to close with a bang.”
Adex growth in September was led by pay television, which rose 25.4% year-on-yearas well as outdoor and free-to-air television, which grew 12.8% and 8.2% respectively.
Newspapers still continued to command the lion’s share of total ad spend, accounting for 37.3% of total adex in September and 39.9% in the January-September period.
For the nine-month period ended September 2012, the product/service categories with the highest ad spend were local government institutions, mobile line services, women’s facial care, fast-food outlets, tonics and vitamins.
Savarimuthu says sentiment will remain cautious for the remainder of the year.
“There are those that will still invest while some will continue to remain cautious,” he says.
Vogiatzakis says he expects adex to increase in the final quarter of the year.
“We expect it to increase slightly,
This is definitely better than the marginal 0.8% increase recorded in August, which seems to indicate that spending has picked up due to improved sentiment. — AN INDUSTRY OBSERVER
following the pattern off previous years’ fourth quarter expenditure. Hopefully, advertisers will not remain cautious and funds will be released.
“It is the last push to boost sales which usually happens every last quarter, so we expect a bit of that to happen again.”
He adds that with the elections unlikely to happen this year (which would have helped to boost adex), companies would be a bit more cautious with their spending.
“Consumers still remain under the cautious optimism spell, especially when the United States and EuropeanE economies are not doing well and under scrutiny. But as the fourth quarter is the last stretch tot bring in revenue, we think it will boost adex somehow,” says Vogiatzakis.
However, an analyst from a local bank-b backed brokerage says he expects adex growth to be “flattish” in the final quarter of 2012.
“This is primarily due to the general election. Advertisers will likely postpone their spending for now until they know for certain when it will be.”