The restructuring of the media landscape is leaving its mark on the Swiss advertising market

In 2014, the top 750 Swiss advertising clients had budgeted a communication volume of CHF 5.887 billion. For 2016/17, these investments have fallen by more than half a billion to CHF 5.323 billion. And this is just in the last three years.

The Media.Research.Group surveys the top 750 advertising clients twice a year about their communication behavior over the next twelve months. The data collected at the beginning of the year is valid for the current year, while the data collected in the middle of the year is valid for the second half of the current year and the first half of the following year. The decline in the volume of communication by around 10 percent over the last three years is largely due to the fact that the once high-priced print media have had to adjust their advertising prices to the new market conditions, i.e. they have had to make significant downward adjustments and have lost a massive amount of market share despite this measure. Added to this is the fact that print media are being replaced by online media, which claim a significantly higher communication performance and at much lower prices.

Clients have benefited from this development. They receive the desired communication services for around half a billion less than three years ago and do not have to compromise on their communication goals and advertising investments, despite falling communication budgets in some cases. According to mediafocus, the advertising pressure they achieve with their advertising investments has even increased over the same period.In addition to the amount of the available communication budgets, this study also asks about their distribution across the individual media and communication genres.

A look at this list only brings joy to direct advertising. For almost all others, it is quite sobering. In fact, direct advertising is the only media and communication category that has been able to grow in the last three years (+50 million francs). The non-traditional communication categories as a whole have lost CHF 100 million, while all traditional categories have lost CHF 465 million. As a result, the share of traditional advertising fell below 50% for the first time in a long time in 2016, which is not at all surprising. If the changes in the media market are too hectic, confusing and difficult to understand, some clients even tend to opt for simpler solutions and increasingly rely on direct advertising, for example. Then you know what you have.

Author: Walter Weder, Media.Research.GroupWebsite: http://www.mediaresearchgroup.ch