Mobile adspend jumps threefold in Hong Kong: Admango

Fortune Pharmacal, L’Occitane, LightMAC, Domohorn Wrinkle, and Panadol were among the most active in launching mobile campaigns during the quarter, but did not invest in the platform at all during the same quarter last year. 

According to AdmanGo’s data, which assumes a 60 per cent discount off media rack rates, total advertising expenditure for the first quarter of 2013 reached US$1.24 billion (HK$9.6 billion), marking an average year-on-year growth of 12 per cent.

Mobile advertising has grown from 0.15 to 0.6 per cent of all media spending in Hong Kong. This means the city's mobile adspend has jumped 3.2 times year-on-year.

The cosmetics and skincare industry has been spending the most (20.2 per cent), taking up a fifth of total mobile adspend, replacing the banking and investment services industry (12 per cent), which led in the previous quarter. Mobile adspend from the telecommunication and mobile-phone industry came in third at 8.7 per cent.

Within the cosmetics and skincare sector, the top spending brand was Estee Lauder, which increased its mobile ad spend by 11.5 times compared to the same period a year ago. The French beauty brand's initiatives includes a campaign for its Advanced Night Repair product via Hotmob's mobile ad network, which shared the experiences of 12 users as well as advice from brand ambassadors Guo Jing Jing and Jennifer Tse. Users who click on the mobile pop-up ad were directed to Estee Lauder's landing page.

In the banking industry, HSBC spent the most on advertising, focusing on credit-card promotions, followed by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Asia).

HSBC has been adjusting its media strategy by shifting ad budgets from TVCs and outdoor to interactive and mobile. Its online adspend expanded from 13 to 45 per cent while the most severe drop was in outdoor, declining from 30 to 8 per cent.

Samsung, in the run up to the launch of the Galaxy S4 increased its mobile ad budgets aggressively, by as much as 2,748 per cent as compared with last year.

Chow Sang Sang also increased its spend, propelling it up the ranks from 84th last year to eighth this year in terms of mobile adspend.

Wyeth Gold too has caught the mobile advertising bug, with its newly launched campaign, ‘Learning-On-the-Go’. The flashcard mobile app integrates Google Street View and image-recognition technology.

Other campaign elements like print, out-of-home, retail and street activation were developed to play supporting roles to the mobile app.

As of noon today, the Wyeth app has hit the top spot in the daily app download chart in Hong Kong, indicating the continual growth of mobile-centred campaigns in the months to come.