CREATION: Dotcoms and ISPs stick to the same old means to get their message out ..

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.

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