Korea’s ad market to rebound in 2015: Cheil

Despite big sporting events including the Sochi Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup and the Incheon Asian Games, the ad market didn’t see much growth in 2014, with ad spend increasing just 0.6 per cent due to the Sewol Ferry disaster and reduced private consumption. Terrestrial TV ad spending fell by 8 per cent to USD 1.6 billion driven by the growth of IPTV as more Koreans turned to video-on-demand. As a result, the IPTV ad market grew by as much as 67 per cent.

In 2015, Cheil predicts terrestrial TV growth will rebound to grow 3.4 per cent to US$1.7 billion and mobile advertising will grow more than 20 per cent to surpass US$949 million.

Last year, Korea’s landline internet ad market fell 6.8 per cent to US$1.8 billion, recording the first negative growth, as advertisers opted to advertise on mobile. Search advertising dropped 7 per cent and display ad spend decreased 6.4 per cent. Mobile advertising soared 82.4 per cent to US$796 million in 2014.

Both newspaper and magazine ad markets shrank, by 3.3 per cent and 5.9 per cent respectively.

Digitisation of out-of-home contributed to the popularity of the medium in 2014, leading to 4.6 per cent growth. The booming domestic movie industry helped cinema advertising grow 3.3 per cent to touch a record US$167 million.