Amidst an economic slowdown the Malaysian advertising market recorded a total ratecard spending of RM 6.6 billion for the full year of 2009 – a growth of 7% compared to the same period in the previous year. Following a one percent contraction in the first half of 2009, advertising spending rebounded with a double-digit growth of fourteen percent compared to the same period in 2008.

Amidst an economic slowdown the Malaysian advertising market recorded a total ratecard spending of RM 6.6 billion for the full year of 2009 – a growth of 7% compared to the same period in the previous year. Following a one percent contraction in the first half of 2009, advertising spending rebounded with a double-digit growth of fourteen percent compared to the same period in 2008.

Newspapers and terrestrial television continue to command the bulk of the total adspend pie - at 52 percent and 37 percent respectively, followed by radio (6%), magazines (2%) and outdoor (2%), point-of-sale, cinema and internet (1% each). Advertising spending across most media saw an increase – notably radio (+24%), internet (+22%), outdoor (+17%) and point-of-sale (+16%) (see Table 1).

Despite a marginal increase in adspend of 3 percent for Newspapers, the RM3.4 billion generated by this medium was the result of continued spending by local government institutions, hypermarket and university categories. The 13 percent growth in terrestrial television adspend was contributed by increased spending from the local government institution, women’s face care, communications corporate ad and beauty salon/hairdresser categories.

While for radio, increased spending from tonic & vitamins, electrical retail and tourism authority categories spurred the growth for this medium. Top growth categories for internet were internet service providers, communication corporate ad and automotive corporate ad.

Apart from classifieds, local government institutions has taken over from mobile line service to be the largest advertising category in 2009 with a total spending of RM 298 million. Mobile line services although now ranked 2nd continues to make a large contribution by hitting RM288 in spending. Other top spending categories are face care-woman (RM 194 million), hair shampoo & conditioner (RM 133 million) and tonic & vitamin (RM 129 million) (see Table 2).

”The 7 percent growth in the Malaysian advertising market was boosted by a double-digit increase in spending in the second half of the year, significantly higher than the second half of 2008 and thereby countering the contraction in spending in the first half of 2009. Increased spending on government health-related awareness campaigns and continued spending on local events like the mid and yearend sales and new product and service launches have helped the growth in the media sector,” commented Sara Liew, Associate Director, Media Group, The Nielsen Company.

New entrants to the top 10 category ranking are hypermarket (RM116 million), furniture retail (RM105 million) and beauty salon/hairdresser (RM97 million) while mobile interactive services, cinema advertising and bank/finance corporate categories saw an exit from the top rank in 2009.

Continued spending on influenza A H1N1 and dengue awareness campaigns has also placed local government institutions as the top growth category followed by women’s face care with several product launches and increased spending on existing products, and hypermarkets with on-going price-slash campaigns (see Table 3).

The top advertiser ranking continues to be led by FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) and telecommunications advertisers - Procter & Gamble (RM 189 million) emerges as the largest advertiser, followed by Unilever Malaysia (RM174 million) and Celcom (RM 116 million). Two new entrants to the advertiser ranking are TM and the Ministry of Health (see Table 4).

“2009 was indeed a challenging year across all sectors in the economy including media. However, given that numerous economic indicators suggest the effects of the downturn is subsiding and improving business and consumer sentiment, the advertising market is expected to perform better in 2010 ,” added Ms Liew.

*Nielsen measures advertising spending based on published rate cards, except for Outdoor adspend which is based on actual spending.
1 Nielsen monitors advertising spending on terrestrial television only.
2 Outdoor adspend is based on actual spending by five media operators.
3 Internet adspend measurement began in 2008 and is based on website spending from
Yahoo, MSN, Forbes, Utusan sites, Sin Chew sites, and The Star sites (starting 2009)