Indiantelevision.com Team

(25 September 2008 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Spending on advertising in the first half of 2008 declined slightly 1.4 per cent compared to the same period last year. Preliminary figures were released by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the competitive advertising information service of US media research company Nielsen.

Advertising on Cable TV saw the largest growth, with an increase of 8.1 per cent over the first half of 2007, while Spot Radio fared worst among the 19 media categories analysed by Nielsen, declining by 10.1 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Within specific categories, the Credit Card Services and Direct Response product categories showed the strongest ad spending gains (18.95 per cent and 20.48 per cent, respectively), while the Automotive (-.01 per cent), Pharmaceutical (-4.76 per cent), and Motion Picture (-4.64 per cent) categories recorded the largest advertising declines.

Syndication TV (7.2 per cent) and National Sunday Supplements (7.2 per cent) also enjoyed healthy ad growth in the first half of 2008, compared with the first half of 2007. TV programming and networks targeting Hispanic viewers grew by 4.5 per cent, while those targeting African Americans declined by 5.1 per cent.

A 27 per cent decrease in spending by Financial Services companies-consistently among the top online advertiser segments-drove a six per cent decline in Internet image-based advertising during the period. A number of categories showed strong increases in Internet image-based spending during the period, including the Entertainment industry, which grew 47 v, Automotive, with 45 per cent growth, and Consumer Goods advertisers, up 32 per cent compared to the same period in 2007.

The kargest ad spender Procter and Gamble saw a decline of 4.33 per cent in spend to $1.58 billion from $1,65 billion for the same period last year. General Motors spend rose by .4.87 per cent to $950.3 from $906.2 last year.
AT&T's spend declined to $862.1 milliion from
$914.7 million last year. Verizon's spend rose to $730.7 million from $704.9 million last year.

Spending for the 10 largest advertising categories reached just over $20 billion in the first half of this year, 0.02 per cent less than the same period last year. Most of the top 10 product categories showed increased spending, with the exception of Automotive (-8.01 per cent), Pharmaceutical (-4.76 per cent), Motion Picture (-4.64 per cent), and Auto Dealerships (-0.62 per cent).