APAC media inflation set to easily outpace other regions

As marketing spend shifts and is scaled back in response to COVID-19, Asia-Pacific alone is expected to buck the trend of deflationary cost of media this year, according to a new global report.  

European-based media auditing and consultancy firm ECI has updated its 2020 media inflation analysis in light of the pandemic's impact, showing its drastic effects.  Only digital display and video is poised for slim gains worldwide, with TV, out of home (OOH) and radio all expected to decline in price by single-digit percentages.  Print advertising is estimated to fall the most, with double-digit declines. 

Global media inflation (Source: ECI)

Looking at media spend by region, Asia-Pacific is predicted to be the only region where advertisers can still expect to pay more overall for their advertising this year than last, including more than a 10% hike in digital video.  The study predicts APAC will be the only region to see higher TV, OOH and radio costs.  Like other parts of the world, print will not escape deflation Asia-Pacific, but its marginal decline in magazines and less than 4% drop in newspaper ad costs pale compared to the 20-25% drops expected in North America. 

Regional media inflation (Source: ECI)

With China dominating APAC's overall regional performance, ECI states that since the region is starting to emerge from lockdowns and pandemic status ahead of others, "its performance could be refletive of what more mature markets in other parts of the world can expect in the latter part of 2020." 

Select market breakdowns

Australia

Most media types are anticipated to have inflation estimates similar to those of 2019; however, this is expected to change across the year. April is seeing large decreases in budgets, with May expected to take a further hit. 

China

Whilst China has seen an expected decrease in ad spend in 2020, this has not delivered a significant decrease in anticipated inflation. Digtial media is still expected to see double-digit inflation due to the migration to these platforms by the Chinese population, particularly whilst in lockdown.  The market dynamics of the offline media vendors ensures that pricing can remain competitive - even with lower levels of revenue forecast. 

Indonesia

Official lockdown is not apparent across the whole country and as such there is not a dramatic deflation for the media market anticipated yet.  All media is still anticipated to be inflationary, even if not as high as in 2019.

Korea

An early player in the global fight against coronavirus, Korea is seeing advertisers reduce their spend in 2020, especitally on print.  With the population spending a long period of time in lockdwn, OOH has take a large hit, but the costs of TV and digital media have fared relatively well.