Advertising market After two and a half years of decline, the media are now expecting an upturn in the advertising market.
The longest dry spell of the past 30 years is coming to an end. This is the unanimous view of the media marketers surveyed by Werbewoche. However, uncertainty about the extent of the recovery remains high. No one doubts that growth will return next year. But whether this will be in the region of one percent or even around five percent is still written in the stars. What is also clear, however, is that the expected upturn will be a far cry from the upswing that the media experienced before sinking into the crisis. "September, October, November, December - every month looks a little less bad," explains Publicitas CEO Otto Meier. And this trend is set to continue. Nevertheless, he expects only modest advertising growth of "one to two percent" for the press at the end of 2004.
The titles that have suffered the most, the major newspapers as well as the financial and business press, will be at the forefront of the recovery. "However, there will be a slight delay before the upturn spreads to the entire press," says Meier.
Mortgage job market
Nevertheless, the drought is not yet over, especially for the major newspapers. They are likely to benefit more than average from the upturn in commercial advertising. At the same time, however, the recovery of the job market, an important revenue item, will take some time. Experience shows that the job market reacts to the economic recovery with a delay of "six to nine months" (Meier). In other words, the profits from commercial advertisements are likely to be eaten away initially by the continuing decline in job advertisements. Meier does not expect "a slight increase" in this advertising category until the end of 2004. For this reason, magazines that do not have to wait for the comeback of job advertisements are likely to benefit most from the upturn next year.
The marketers of TV advertising assess the development differently. Publisuisse CEO Martin Schneider expects growth of around three percent in 2004. "Medium-sized and small companies in particular, which had cut advertising expenditure disproportionately, will come back with the upswing," says Schneider.
IPM CEO Michi Frank, on the other hand, is more pessimistic about the near future of total TV spending. "If they can remain at the 2003 level, then that will be good." He is only really confident about the advertising windows, where he expects growth in 2004.
The forecasts for radio are also pointing upwards. "After the loss-making summer months, the pendulum has been swinging in the other direction since September", explains Radiotele boss Bruno Oetterli. And Frank is also convinced "that the radio market will grow in 2004". For this to happen, however, it must be possible to attract new customers to the radio. "For example, with branding campaigns that have hardly been represented in this medium to date." Poster advertising is also looking to next year with confidence. "I hope that we can grow by between two and five percent," explains Christian Kauter, CEO of Affichage.
Growth in cinema advertising could be even more pronounced next year, with double-digit percentage growth in the first three quarters of 2003. The reason: in the second half of 2004, expensive cinema prints will be replaced by much cheaper digital production. "As a result, we will be able to win new customers for whom cinema advertising was previously too expensive," explains Jean-Claude Bruhin. Thanks to the introduction of digital production, he expects an increase of "between 10 and 20 percent".
And if the promised economic upturn does not materialize to the extent expected, will the advertising market face another year of depression? Publicitas CEO Otto Meier waves it off. "In the overall marketing process, advertising is on such a weak footing at the moment that things can only go up."
The economy is picking up againNever since the slump almost three years ago have so many
There have never been more indicators of a broad economic recovery than now. The Swiss economy grew by one percent in the third quarter. In the same period, the USA experienced record-breaking growth of over eight percent. It can be assumed that the global upturn will continue, writes Seco. This is already noticeable in Switzerland. For example, exports of goods have increased again after three quarters of declining growth. Another sign of the imminent turnaround: Equipment investments in the
Companies expanded again for the first time after two and a half years of contraction. (dse)
Since September, advertising bookings have been increasing across all media types. Together with the emerging global economic recovery, there is growing certainty that the longest
advertising market crisis of the post-war period will soon be a thing of the past. The extent to which the sales curves will point in a positive direction next year remains to be seen in view of the rapidly changing economic data.
is nevertheless difficult to predict at present.
Daniel Schifferle