In October, television was the strongest Swiss advertising medium for the first time in 2018
October proved to be another strong month for advertising in 2018. With advertising spending of 682.8 million Swiss francs (gross), it posted a 1.5 percent increase compared to the previous month. Compared to the previous year, the increase was 8.5 percent.
Cumulative gross advertising pressure from January to October 2018 amounted to CHF 5.9 billion. This means that the trend continues to point steeply upwards compared to the previous year - whether with or without data expansion (+21.7% and +2.8% respectively). TV and the internet went head-to-head for the title of strongest media group in October, with TV coming out on top for the first time since December 2017.
Data integration: Internet and TV
The Internet media group has been reported in the advertising market trend including search desktop advertising since January 2017. Search Mobile was also integrated into the Media Focus advertising statistics as of the July 2017 data cut-off date. In January 2018, Search (desktop + mobile) was integrated for French-speaking Switzerland on the basis of tens of thousands of French search terms (share of Search YTD: 85% DE/15% FR). Since March 2018, YouTube data (display and video) has also been reported retroactively from January 2018 in the advertising market trend (share of media mix YTD 1%).
From January 2018, the TV media group will also include TV sponsorship and the pre-split, post-split, single split and time advertising formats.
Advertising pressure in the overall market
Development of advertising pressure as at October 2018
Financial sector continues to pick up
The financial sector recorded the highest gross advertising pressure in October for the second month in a row. However, this does not change the top 3 sector ranking YTD. Leisure, gastronomy & tourism leads the field, followed by services and finance in third place. However, there is a shift in the direct runner-up group. Food overtook Retail, partly due to the highest advertising pressure in TV, the strongest media group in October.
Self-determination initiative pushes political campaigns
The vote on the self-determination initiative on November 25 - above all the proponents of the initiative - brought the political campaigns product group the highest year-on-year growth (+362.3%). In second place comes the telecommunications industry (+70.0%), which had lost advertising pressure year-on-year in September. As in previous months, the TV & home entertainment product group increased significantly compared to 2017 (25.5%). The cleaning (22.5%), leisure, gastronomy & tourism (21.4%) and events (21.4%) sectors also increased their advertising pressure by more than 20% year-on-year.
The ups and downs of the tobacco industry continue
The tobacco industry recorded the biggest decline in October 2018 with a significant drop of 52.8% compared to the same month last year. This follows an increase in September. The advertising pressure curve for the vehicle industry and the transportation, personal care and pharma & healthcare sectors also showed a year-on-year decline, following growth in the previous month of September. The downward trend of the previous month continued in the energy and media sectors.
Advertising printing in the industries
Advertising pressure in the sectors with year-on-year comparison
Top 10 of the month
The top 10 advertisers and most frequently advertised products and services (excluding product range and image advertising) in October
Media Mix
The integration of Search data, Desktop (January 2017) and Mobile (July 2017) into the Media Focus advertising statistics has led to a significant increase in the share of Internet in the media mix. Since January 2018, Search data has also been collected for French-speaking Switzerland (Search share: 85% DE/15% FR).
