Brake and accelerator of the year

After 109 million fewer advertising francs rolled into the media in 2002 than in the previous year, an even more rigorous round of savings is on the horizon for 2003. "We expect a further decline of two and a half to three percent compared to the previous year," says Lukas Zihlmann, Managing Director of the market research institute Media Focus. This would bring advertising expenditure down to around 3660 million francs. The decline in the second half of 2003 was probably less pronounced than in the first half, but by the end of October the slowdown was quite marked in some of the top ten sectors compared with the same period last year: service providers (-15.2%), the IT/office sector (-12%) and vehicle and finance companies (around -9% each). The leisure/tourism sector was the only one to spend more money on communication (+ 12%). "It is not easy to make a forecast for the new year. In general, the signs for the development of advertising expenditure are positive. However, the whole thing is on relatively shaky ground," explains Zihlmann. In the ranking of the largest Swiss advertising clients, the race seems to have already been decided after the first ten months: Migros with CHF 181.2 million (+17.7% compared to the same period last year, January to October) ahead of Coop with CHF 164.9 million (+6.2%), Swisscom with CHF 42.6 million, Masterfoods and Unilever. With its bulging pockets, Migros is likely to overtake its Basel competitor at the top of the list of advertising clients.
(la)