The research is under GroupM’s ‘This year, next year: China media forecasts’ on media and marketing. It has also predicted that ad spend will grow 11 per cent in 2011 from 2010, totaling to US$50 billion.
On a year-on-year level, the percetage change in media investment sees a growth of 16.3 per cent, compared to the 9.8 per cent from 2009. 2011 however is looking on a 10.6 per cent.
Spending on television advertising is said to drive the ad dollars this year. It contributes to a 16 per cent growth to the overall media spend. TV adds up to US$28 billion (more than US$24 billion from 2009).
Internet spending records the largest gain, growing 30 per cent, with online ad spend records US$4 billion.
GroupM said the rise in consumers’ disposable income and retail distribution beyond top-tier cities are factors that influenced the growth this year. “Retail sales grew 15 per cent in 2009, double the rate of nominal GDP,” said Adam Smith, future director of GroupM. He adds that advertising investment could well run ahead of GDP for years to come.
However, people have to take ‘media inflations’ into consideration. “CCTV, Beijing TV and Shanghai Media Group (SMG) have tremendous power and influence,” stated the research release. Demands for airtime far exceeded the supply.
Lucy Zhang (pictured), future director at GroupM China, said, “The media market is about to begin an era of hyper fragmentation, offering media agencies and advertisers a massive degree of choice when formulating media plans.”
“The key challenge for advertisers in China is how agencies manage and evaluate this choice while striving for further media effectiveness and higher returns from media,” she added.
