Decline in Global Ad Spend is Slowing, Says Nielsen

NEW YORK: Surveying 27 markets around the world, Nielsen’s Global AdView Pulse reports that the decline in ad expenditures has slowed, with the Asia Pacific driving the beginnings of a rebound in the market.

Adspend was down by 6.8 percent in the first half, but, Nielsen notes, the rate of decline in the second quarter was 5.8 percent, as compared with 7.9 percent in the first quarter. In the Asia-Pacific region, there was 6.5-percent increase in advertising expenditures in the first half. In the second quarter, meanwhile, the region was up by 2.2 percent, as compared with a 15.9-percent decline in North America and a 9.1-percent decline in Europe.

Television advertising took a significant hit in North America, where it was down 14.9 percent. In Europe, TV adspend fell 8 percent. In Asia, meanwhile, there was a 6.7-percent gain.  

“In this economic environment, brands favor broadcast media: TV always being considered as the most reliable media in hard times and radio provides a solid call to action platform,” said Ben van der Werf, managing director of Global AdView at The Nielsen Company. “Throughout the remainder of 2009 and beyond, we can expect to see ad spend for broadcast media slowly moving toward better performance—but it’s unlikely print advertising will show any great gains in the near future. Though newspapers show a more contained decline versus the quarter two 2008, driven by a less steep decline in Asia Pacific, magazines seem not to have benefited by the slight improvements of the market. They closed the quarter with a 19.6-percent decrease in ad revenues, which is a larger decline than what was reported in the first quarter of the year.”