ANALYSIS: Singapore adspend shifts to non-traditional media - The Lion City innovates as marketers prepare for the worst. Alfred Hille reports

As the region braces for a possible US-induced economic slowdown, advertisers in Singapore have restructured their ad strategy to allow them to maintain their share of voice in the market through a more efficient use of resources. They have diverted significant sums of advertising dollars from television and newspapers to less costly media options such as outdoor and magazines. According to figures provided by ACNielsen, the Lion City's adspend grew a sluggish four per cent in the first quarter to Sdollars 337.3 million (about USdollars 191 million), compared with the 28 per cent growth in the same period last year. However, spend in newspapers - the country's biggest medium - expanded a paltry 0.7 per cent to Sdollars 167.7 million, while television performed even worse, contracting just less than one percentage point to Sdollars 106.9 million. At the same time, bus-back/taxitop advertising soared more than 40 per cent, and radio and poster jumped about 26 per cent. Magazines surged 20 per cent and cinemas put on 10 per cent. The restructuring of the adspend strategy is in line with the cautious mood currently prevailing across the region, but Singapore is the only major Asian market to make such a sizeable shift. Zenith Media Singapore managing director Kenneth Tsang says part of the reason for this is because new media opportunities are becoming available to advertisers. "There are more magazines, more channels like bus shelters, and that allows us to be more innovative with print ads. Advertising on taxis and buses keep reaching new professional heights and there has even been a great deal of improvement in radio content in terms of music and other shows. "So lower cost opportunities abound as the supply of new media channels become available. And it's not a case of 'more of the same' but a real and tangible qualitative jump," Tsang said. Compared with Singapore, Hong Kong's first quarter performance was only slightly better at 4.8 per cent to HKdollars 6.8 billion (about USdollars 0.87 billion), as advertisers adopted a wait-and-see attitude on the direction of the US economy. However, media directors said the lacklustre year-on-year growth rate was a reflection of the bursting of the dotcom bubble, which was one of the principal drivers of advertising expenditure in 2000. Starcom Hong Kong managing director Paul Maher said: "In general, the Hong Kong market is adjusting to a more realistic growth rate, close to the territory's growth rate for the year." Seen in this light, the first quarter performance isn't bad and the consensus is for an adspend growth rate of between three and five per cent for the whole of 2001. Maher also said that given that banking and government authorities in New York and Washington have taken serious steps to prevent the US economy from plunging into a recession, it appears that confidence is slowly returning to the Hong Kong market. "In January, there was a high degree of uncertainty and budgets were put on hold but I expect a resurgence in adspend in the last half of the year as the feeling of pessimism recedes." Maher said. One of the principal drivers of Hong Kong's adspend growth is mainland China properties; advertising in this sector climbed 61 per cent to HKdollars 343 million in the first quarter, which accounts for about five per cent of the total adspend pie. In comparison, local Hong Kong real estate advertising tumbled some 12 per cent. China, meanwhile, continued growing at a double-digit rate, putting on 17.5 per cent to RMB20.5 billion (about USdollars 2.5 billion). Tonic and vitamin was the biggest category, rising 4.5 per cent to RMB2.4 billion. The cough and cold remedy sector was the second-fastest growing, surging more than 102 per cent to RMB1.1 billion.

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