Media Focus: Excellent advertising market trend in March
The advertising market trend looks excellent following the close of the first quarter of 2011. With over one billion Swiss francs in gross advertising spend, Q1 2011 closed at a high level, surpassing the corresponding periods of previous years.
According to Media Focus statistics, the volume of advertising in March 2011 exceeded CHF 403 million. Compared with the same month last year, this represents a slight decline of 2.3 percent and a drop of CHF 9.7 million. Overall, over the first three months of 2011, the top three sectors of vehicles, food and retail accounted for around one-third of the advertising print. This is according to a press release issued by Media Focus on Thursday,
Compared with 2010, advertising pressure in the areas of vehicle advertising and cross-sector product range and image advertising in the retail trade was increased by 17.4 percent and 20 percent respectively. The measured advertising franc for food was just able to maintain the previous year's level. In the first quarter of 2011, small cars made it big. Within the passenger car sector (NEW), they pushed SUVs + SUVs into second place with an advertising print of just under 14 million Swiss francs. The lowest advertising print was recorded by the luxury class with a drop of 21 percent compared to the previous year. In the retail trade sector, advertising for mail order, shopping centers, retail, department stores and kiosks + stores accounted for just under a third of the sector total for the first quarter. More than CHF 57.6 million, or over 73 percent, was spent on advertising for major distributors.
It is interesting to note that advertising pressure for cross-sector product range and image advertising by major distributors increased by almost 30 percent compared with the first quarter of 2010, with an increase of 13 million Swiss francs, but the figures for the other areas of the sector remained almost identical.
As of March 31, 2011, the daily, regional weekly + Sunday press outperformed the TV media group by almost CHF 10 million. While the two media groups were still in a neck-and-neck race in January and February, the daily, regional weekly + Sunday press pulled ahead in March, closing the month with gross advertising revenues of just under CHF 129 million. TV reported around CHF 118 million in March 2011.
