Advertising clients remain optimistic for 2015
The Center for Customer Insight at the University of St. Gallen, on behalf of BSW Leading Swiss Agencies and with the support of the Swiss Association of Advertising Clients, surveyed more than 1,300 communications professionals about their expectations for the current year.
78% of all advertising clients generally expected the economy to remain positive in 2015, continuing the trend of recent years. This is not surprising, as the majority of companies have performed well over the past six years. However, it was not possible to answer the question of what impact the appreciation of the Swiss franc has had on the communications industry, as the survey was conducted before the SNB released the exchange rate. BSW and the SWA assume that the forecast trend for 2015 could be somewhat dampened. Around 50% of all companies were already operating abroad in 2014 and were therefore directly affected by exchange rate changes. Almost a quarter of all companies already placed individual orders abroad in 2014 - primarily for cost reasons. This could now intensify.
The fundamentally positive conditions are only reflected to a limited extent in the planned communication investments. Just under half of all clients state that their communication and media budget will not change significantly in 2015. A quarter of clients are either reducing or increasing their investments in communication and media this year.
Continuing trend towards digital communication in 2015
The distribution of funds will change significantly in 2015. 75% of clients stated that they want to direct significantly more funds into digital and online communication, followed by dialog with 37% and sales promotion with 23%. In contrast, only 13% of all advertising clients want to invest significantly more in traditional advertising. This is a trend that is likely to intensify in the future.
With digitalization and the complexity of channels, the demands on clients and agencies are increasing. Investment security is also becoming more and more of an issue in communication and demonstrable RoCI (return on communication investment) is a must. Accordingly, over 81% of all clients stated that they will invest more money in efficiency measurement in 2015. In order to achieve even greater communication benefits, 80 percent of all clients also want to make more money available for strategy consulting and 82 percent for brand consulting. This demand is echoed by the bsw agencies, which are also investing massively in expanding their strategic consulting and efficiency measurement.
The complete study results are published on Bsw.ch/news
High response rate to the study
The study was conducted by e-mail by the FCI-HSG in November and December 2014. The addresses of the advertising clients were collected by the two associations. 8 percent or 108 people answered all the questions in the study. The response rates for individual areas were several times higher. The evaluation was carried out by the research center. The individual responses are confidential and cannot be viewed by the two associations.
Communications managers from over 30 sectors were surveyed. 88 percent of them are either fully or partially B2C-oriented, i.e. they address end consumers directly. Marketing enjoys a correspondingly high status in these companies. 86 percent assign a major to very major role to marketing. In cross-comparison with studies by SW "Die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Werbewirtschaft in der Schweiz 2013", the published gross media investments "Werbemarkt Trend 2014/12" by Mediafocus and estimates by BSW media agencies, the study represents around one seventh of all communication and media investments made in Switzerland.
