Ad spend in the UAE during the second quarter of the year fell 39 per cent on the same period last year, according to new figures from Ipsos. However, optimists would point out that spending is only 3 per cent down on the first three months of the year, suggesting that the rate of the downslide is beginning to slow.
Ipsos reports that ad spend fell from $364 million in the first quarter to $354 million in the second, although it should be noted that outdoor and online have not been counted.
The hardest hit are newspapers and magazines. Spending on newspaper advertising in the Emirates has halved compared with the same quarter of 2008, while magazines are 10 per cent down. A large proportion of this is undoubtedly due to the retraction of the real estate sector.
The beneficiaries appear to be broadcast media, with advertisers spending 41 per cent more on TV in the first half of 2009 than they did in the first half of 2008. Yet the $31 million spent on local TV remains only around half of the $61 million spent on local radio in the same period – a rise of 23 per cent on the first six months of last year.
July 12, 2009 at 6:48 am
Is advertising *really* down only 10 per cent on magazines…? The figure seems a tad low to me.