Swiss advertising industry breathes a sigh of relief
According to the Media Research Group, the advertising industry—which had stalled at the beginning of the year—is slowly lifting its foot off the brakes, though not quite yet.
While a 7.3% decline in the volume of communication in the Swiss economy was forecast at the beginning of the year, clients are now only expecting a small further decline of 0.9%.
The communication volume available to the Swiss advertising industry for the next 12 months amounts to CHF 5.41 billion. This represents a volume reduction of almost half a billion compared to 2014. Even compared to the first survey this year, this results in a further reduction in volume of CHF 40 million (-0.9%).
Twice a year, the Media Research Group surveys the top 750 advertising clients about their communication behavior over the next 12 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 next year. In the first survey, 366 clients disclosed their communications and in the second survey, which has just been completed, 375 clients did so.
In addition to the amount of the available communication budget, the survey also asks about its distribution across the individual media and communication categories. This shows that the forecasts made at the beginning of the year for 2015 need to be corrected slightly. This applies in particular to the statements on the development of online media and direct advertising. Although the direction of development is correct, the course of this development is less pronounced than originally indicated. For advertising in online media, this means that it is rising out of the hole predicted at the beginning of the year. But it is still in it. However, this is enough to achieve a share gain of 0.7 percentage points in the media mix. The situation is somewhat different for direct advertising. While it initially seemed as if it would be the only category to survive unscathed, it is now also suffering losses (-60 million francs).
Although traditional communication fell by CHF 50 million overall, it was able to increase its share of total communication by 0.4 percentage points to 51.9 percentage points. TV advertising made a significant contribution to this, increasing its share of the media mix by 0.4 percentage points. The biggest sufferers are magazines, whose share fell by 0.9 percentage points. Newspapers have escaped virtually unscathed this time. This is a ray of hope. Out-of-home advertising, whose market share in the media mix remains at 11%, is neither in the shade nor in the sun, simply in the middle.
