According to Nielsen Media Research, ad expenditure in the first half grew by just 0.9 per cent to S$760 million (US$432 million) year-on-year.
Except for television and radio, all mediums showed negative growth.
Newspaper advertising, which accounts for 43 per cent of local spend, contracted 6.2 per cent in the first half year-on-year to $327.9 million, while spend on magazines shrank 13.1 per cent to $29.3 million. The biggest cutback was reported in the banking/investment category, down eight per cent to $28.7 million.
IAS honorary executive director, Patrick Mowe, said the campaign strategy was to drive home the fact that corporate decision-makers risked devaluing their brands by stopping their advertising. The TV, radio and print campaign illustrates the point by showing how three once sought-after items have become practically worthless. One commercial shows a woman using a leather handbag to carry fish from a wet market and another has a man using a designer shirt to clean his car. All end with the rhetorical question: "What will your brand be worth after the recession?"
The new campaign was created pro bono by M&C Saatchi and comes after IAS' first effort in March, which used a visual metaphor - a wounded soldier in a battlefield flagging a medic - to make the point that companies need to "advertise to survive". But the work by independent agency, Crush, offended some in the media.
CNBC presenter Stephen Engle claimed it was one of the most insensitive and insulting campaigns he had ever seen because it "desecrated the "great sacrifices soldiers made in a war.
