{Telecommunication & mobile phone tops in globally}
2013 had its share of surprises, in Europe the automotive sector- traditionally one of the biggest Ad Spenders-took a big hit due to the economic downturn, declining by 8%; the intense uptake of 3G and launch of 4Gnetworkscombined with the penetration of smartphones saw heightened competition in advertising from the telecommunications and mobile phones sector. This global advertising spend is similar to Africa where the telecommunication sector remains the top advertising spender.
For 2014, projections put global advertising spend at $518.8 billion, by 2016 total Media Ad expenditure globally will surpass the $600 billion mark for the first time. As expected, North America will lead the other global regions in total Media Ad spending, with USA in the leading position. In the Asia-Pacific region, China has the largest advertising share, while in Western Europe, Germany takes the lead. (Adage.com)
{Middle East and Africa – lowest spenders}
Closer home, the Middle East and Africa remain the lowest advertising spenders in the world behind Latin America. This is as a result of political instability has aggravated the situation further. It is interesting to note that despite this low advertising spend; the Middle East and Africa represent the fastest growing markets globally. Going forward, advertisers are eager to reach this expanding population as rising income levels boost aspiration and consumption, especially among the young professionals and growing middle class; we are likely to see an increase over the next two years. Generally, television and newspapers command a huge chunk of advertising.
{RADIO remains King in Africa}
In Africa for instance, it is common knowledge that Radio is king, it does not matter what corner of the continent you find yourself in, access to radio Is guaranteed, either via the traditional radio set or the more convenient portable mobile phone handset. The penetration of radio across Africa is at 90%, with this kind of accessibility, there is no slowing down for Radio.
Globally, online advertising is set to increase greatly and Africa will not be left behind based on the rapid improvement of infrastructure and deep penetration of internet and internet-ready mobile phones. Talking about phones, we cannot ignore the growing popularity for mobile advertising. The Asia-pacific region previously commanded the largest share in this medium due to Japan and South Korea’s advanced mobile advertising markets but Western Europe and North America is set to surpass them due to the increased penetration of smart phones and tablets available in the market. Mobile advertising numbers are still quite low in Africa despite the high penetration of mobile phones.
{Insights on EA Advertising Spends with special attention on Rwanda}
Over the years, the advertising industry in East Africa has been growing slowly but steadily. This growth of the industry confirms the confidence advertisers have in the respective EA economies. According to Ipsos media research surveys (2013), majority of traditional media share of advertising revenues was affected by budget cuts in 2012-13 but radio remains a key touch point for the advertiser registering an average Adspend of about 60% per year. This communication medium controls more than half of the overall Adspend. With its powerful reach, higher accessibility figures and engagement levels, radio will reign supreme in East Africa for years to come. Kenya seems to have an upper hand in the advertising industry in comparison to the East African region, but Rwanda is not too far behind and with the Government and private sector support and investment in the media industry, the one media house monopoly twenty years ago has now become a multimedia house industry with new local stations coming up regularly and huge investment from foreign media houses.
{Rwanda Spends by category}
From a global perspective personal care and health care categories do rather well with automotive coming in third. The trend in Africa is different, communications and beverage categories take the top two spots. Our media experts looked at the Rwanda advertising spends in the first half of the year. According to the Ipsos Advertising Spend half year survey (Qtr1 and Qtr2 2014), in Rwanda, the top 4 categories are corporate, financial services, Communication and Tourism/Entertainment, respectively. Beverage, publishing/education and transport fall within the top 10 spenders. The Corporate/multibrand category includes government i.e. ministries, parastatals, as well, as NGO’s; Communications comprises mobile service providers, internet service providers, mobile phone dealers/manufacturers etc, the Financial Services category covers banks, insurances, micro-finance etc. and tourism/entertainment includes tour operators, hotels, restaurants, entertainment events and locations etc.
In the first half of this year, the analysis revealed that the Corporate category led with spends of1.96B Rwf (2.8M USD) which is equivalent to 29% of all spends, the financial category followed with 1.24B Rwf (1.78M USD) which is equivalent to 18% of all spends 3rd in place was the communication category with 1.14B Rwf (1.63M USD) which was equivalent to 17% of all spends. The bottom three categories in the first half of the year were Clothing, Fabrics and Footwear with 10.1 M Rwf (14K USD); Supplements and congratulations with 5M Rwf (7k USD); veterinary/Agriculture with 3M Rwf (4K USD). Office Equipment and services include stationery, photocopiers, computers fax etc. supplements and congratulations are mostly found on newspapers.
{
Rwanda Spends by Medium}
Total spends in the 1st half of the year were 6.77B Rwf (9.69M USD) where the top three categories commanded 64%. Breaking it down by medium, radio had a 66% share (4.47B Rwf) while print had 34% (2.3M Rwf). The largest spender on radio was the communications category which includes the telecommunication companies that generally spend a lot on radio. The radio spends in the first half of the year for the communications category was 1B Rwf (1.4M USD) which is equivalent to 22% of all radio spends. The financial services category was second on radio with 822M Rwf (1.1M USD) which is equivalent to 18% of all radio spends. The largest spender on print was corporate and multibrand due to the large print spends by the government and its agencies and ministries. In the first half of 2014 corporate and multibrand print spends were 1.27B Rwf (1.8M RWf) which was equivalent to 55% of all print spends. The financial services category was second on print with 423M Rwf (605K USD) which is equivalent to 18% of all print spends
{{Table.1}}
While Radio is growing, some industry experts have predicted a continued decrease in print despite cases of targeted advertising, most advertising is mass, hence advertisers will place their ads in platforms where they can reach the most people, if the readership of newspapers goes down then that means the possible mass reachable via print will also go down hence budgets for print advertising will also go down, especially the hard copy newspapers. Is the thought of waking up to empty newspaper stands becoming a reality? This thought may be a little farfetched, newspapers will always have a place in the media space, how significant that space is can be left to anyone’s speculation. It is noteworthy that online readership of newspapers is on the increase, and the numbers of those visiting websites of the leading newspaper brands are higher than the number of those visiting the closest newspaper stand. Given that the newspaper reading culture in Rwanda is still growing and the market has only two daily newspapers, the advertising spends on print would be expected to be significantly lower than those of the other mediums. It was earlier mentioned that Radio is king and in Rwanda, that fact is very true.
When 2nd half of the year data comes out, we will compare the two halves of which the 2nd half is expected to have more spends, largely due to the Christmas festive season and also the reduced spends in the month of April where the nation commemorates the genocide victims. During this period, all media is focused on the various commemoration events with no or little Ads being aired.
The above analysis can be further broken down by top company in each category and also top brands or campaigns in each company or institution. It can also show the spread of spends across the different monitored stations and print brands. Additionally it can be integrated with audience data that we will be releasing in 2015.
Ipsos launched its media monitoring services in Rwanda in August 2013 and is also involved in Media and Market research. Ipsos in Rwanda is currently monitoring 8 radio stations and 5 print brands with television monitoring scheduled to commence in 2015
{{Abraham.nganga@ipsos.com
+2540786340190}}
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