Advertising spending continued to climb in July

 Advertising pressure rose by 4.7 percent year-on-year to 214.7 million Swiss francs in July 2007. Accumulated advertising expenditure in the first half of 2007 rose by 7.9 percent to around 2.2 billion Swiss francs, as reported by the market research institute Media Focus on Monday. The media groups of consumer magazines, daily newspapers, cinema and television were able to achieve above-average growth in July. On a cumulative basis for the data months January to July 2007, the television media group grew faster than the growth average. Some advertising markets have developed conspicuously in July compared to the previous year: With a year-on-year increase of 81.9 percent, the food sector is the clear monthly leader. However, there was significantly less advertising in the key market of furniture, home & garden. Here, advertisers invested 29.0% less in communication than in the same period last year. The top five advertisers in the product market - Ikea, Pfister, Hubacher, Coop and Migros - recorded a drop of between 28 and 88 percent.
The strongest monthly growth in the current year to date was recorded in the vehicles sector, with an increase of 22.1% compared to the same period last year. True to the rainy summer weather, gross expenditure on convertibles fell year-on-year (-31.9%). Unimpressed by the (political) climate, advertising expenditure for SUVs increased by a whopping 217.3%.