Hong Kong adspend declined 0.3 per cent in July: admanGo

Due to the continuing unstable external economic environment, total advertising dollars invested in July 2012 amounted to US$440 million, a slight decline of 0.3 per cent from June.

With the launch of the Galaxy S3, Samsung increased its adspend by 197 per cent to US$8 million compared to last year. Although P&G was the top spender again with US$11 million, it was the only one in the top 10 groups to cut its spending. The group’s media strategy in July still focused on TVCs that took up 80 per cent of its total adspend, but declined by 20 per cent YOY.

While fast-fashion brands such as Gap, H&M, Uniqlo, Zara and Forever 21 still chose to spend on traditional campaigns, Abercrombie & Fitch, which opened its flagship store in early August, turned to PR strategies. Specifically, the company employed 80 half-naked male models, which created a buzz on mainstream media and social-networking sites. The brand spent less than US$78,000 in traditional advertising from January to July, while Uniqlo increased its spending to US$1.2 million YOY.

Due to increasing awareness in men’s fashion, the brands have raised the adspend in in the segment 2.5 times from last year, which saw the share of men’s fashion adspend jump from 17 per cent to 28 per cent.

As for media share, in July, the advertising expense on TVCs went up by 10 per cent YOY, with the largest ratio of ad dollars coming from the toiletries and household industry, followed by the beverage industry, in which milk-powder brands have taken 60 per cent of the pie. This indicates that milk-powder advertisers are targetting mainland travellers during the upcoming summer holiday.

Adspend in newspapers has accelerated by 40 per cent compared with July last year. All the increased revenue went to free papers, where both the education and training and pharmaceuticals and healthcare industries grew by 70 per cent year-on-year.

AMAZE’s Market Watch shows that in the second quarter of 2012, Hong Kong mobile advertising spending grew 22 per cent, compared with 16 per cent in Q1. This figure reflects that advertisers have shifted their advertising budgets from traditional media to mobile. The spending on display ads rose 21 per cent and accounted for 78 per cent of total mobile ad spending.