Spain's adspend trend set to rise in 2014

WARC, 30 January 2014

MADRID: The Spanish advertising market is showing signs of recovery as two new reports indicate a slowing in the rate of decline and an increase in average spend per brand.

Latest forecasts from the Zenith Vigía panel, which comprises commercial, marketing and media research executives from Spanish media groups indicated a slight 1.7% deterioration in advertising expenditure for 2013.

But after five years of decline that has taken adspend figures back to 1995 levels, the panel was cautiously optimistic and said it expected an upturn in mid-2014.

Only two channels showed any growth: mobile ad spending was forecast to rise 12.6% and internet investment by 4.3%. Within the internet classification, search (4.8%) was rising faster than display (3.8%).

TV was anticipated to show a 1.9% decline over the year, with pay TV shrinking almost twice as fast, on -3.1%. Newspapers and magazines are likely to experience similar levels of decrease, at -10% and -9.7% respectively.

Radio (-4.5%), out of home (-5.2%) and cinema (-7.2%) were also slipping but at a slower rate.

For the coming year the fastest-growing investment areas were predicted to be in digital signage (+9%) and mobile (+8%). Internet video (+6%), social media (+6%) and blogs (+4%) were other channels earmarked for growth.

A separate report from i2p, produced by Media Hotline and Arce Media, said that the final quarter of 2013 was the first quarter since the recession began in which average brand investment had increased, rising 9.8% to €46,941. In particular, average spend was increasing on the internet (+7.0%) and TV (+4.5%).

But the number of brands investing in advertising fell 10.5% compared to the same period in 2012 as almost 2,500 chose to pull out of the market altogether. Over the full year, i2p said the number of active brands was down 8.6% but average spend had fallen only 1.6%.

The annual expenditure figures produced by i2p were significantly worse than those of Zenith Vigía, however, as it expected the rate of decline to be around six times as much, at -10.1%. Even the usually bright spot of internet advertising was forecast to be down 2.5% down over the year.

For 2014, however, it saw internet advertising growing at 5.5%, ahead of television on 3.5% and cinema on 2.3%.

Data sourced from PR Noticias; additional content by Warc staff

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