While campaign optimisation on the fly stands out as one of the
saving graces of online advertising, dotcoms themselves are looking to
less cyber-based avenues to get their message out. In the latest survey
by ACNielsen AdQuest, a snapshot into the adspend habits of Hong Kong
dotcoms and ISP portals from January through to May showed dotcoms
raising the bar in spend at least, investing HK$728 million into
their awareness efforts.
ISPs on the other hand paled in comparison, brandishing only HK$148 million in adspend figures during this period.
Newspapers also came up trumps in the awareness stakes, with dotcoms
pouring HK$325 million into print ad campaigns.
According to MindShare digital associate director Ralph Szeto, the need
to capitalise on print is about more than just reach.
"They'll be seen by business partners as well as investors, so that's
why newspapers and TV rank very high on spending - newspapers are (also)
easy, I just make the booking today and have the insertion tommorow," he
said.
Chinese television ranked second in the quest to draw in the eyeballs,
garnering HK$238 million worth of dotcom adspend.
The ISPs, on the other hand, reflected the fact that an advertising
model no longer stood strongly as a main revenue source, with reduced
adspend - HK$38 million - invested in campaigns targeted at the
Chinese TV market.
In the race for more lasting brand exposure, dotcom advertisers spent
HK$73 million on magazine advertising.
Interestingly, while the battle to shout loudest for brand recognition
rages on, radio remained a poorly adopted medium - garnering only
HK$42 million worth of dotcom adspend and a poor HK$6.6
million from the ISPs.
And while the world and their dotcom cousin goes mad for outdoor as the
medium for maximum recognition, Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway (MTR)
raked in a paltry HK$19 million from the dotcoms and HK$4
million from the ISP advertisers.
No figures were released which mapped out who was doing what in the
outdoor space besides on the buses, where dotcoms and ISPs spent
HK$12 million and HK$2 million respectively.
"As the outdoor medium gets used more and more, to get an accurate
picture of adspend habits I believe there has to be real measurement of
billboards, outdoor furntiture and the like," Mr Szeto said.
Riding out the recent market chill were the online financial service
providers and the telecoms players who continued to be the out-and-out
strongest spenders.
Topping the adspend bill was CASH online, tagged by Sunday.com and
Hongkong.com.
TOP 20 ADVERTISERS (Jan-May, 2000)
Range Website HKdollars '000
1 CASH 41,532
2 Sunday.com 34,270
3 Hongkong.com 33,207
4 C&WHKT Broadband Netvigator 28,718
5 C&WHKT Netvigator 28,577
6 House18.com 25,171
7 Propertystreet.net 24,177
8 Tom.com 13,779
9 Eceasy.net 13,716
10 Red-dots.com 13,338
11 e-finance.com.hk 12,802
12 Sunevision.com 12,614
13 Pandaplanet.com 12,456
14 Stareastnet 12,248
15 Comicinema.com 12,242
16 Andylau.com 12,183
17 SCMP.com 11,895
18 KGI Asia 11,635
19 Smartone I-Smart 11,418
20 Leonstareastnet.com 11,225
Top 20 Total 377,203
Top 20 Total vs Jan-May Total 43%
Source: ACNielsen AdQuest.
