Media Fact Book 2010 study release, the event of the week on Romanian marcomm market

In the middle of a continuing economical crisis and busy start of June, the most important event on the Romanian marcomm market was, this past week, the launch of 2010 edition of Media Fact Book.

Media Fact Book is analyzing, for years now, the Romanian media market and estimates the its evolution by the end of the year, based on data collected from the market. The study is published every year by Initiative Romania.

According to the study, the Romanian media market entered a downward trend in October 2008 and faced the full crisis in 2009. As a consequence, the invested budgets went down for all types of media, while advertisers made efforts to adjust their expenses every quarter.

The study estimates that the total net value of the market will be, this year, of Euro 308m, down from Euro 339m in 2009, and expects TV to attract the biggest part of the budgets (Euro 209m, down from Euro 222m last year).

In what concerns the other media, MFB 2010 estimates the value of the attracted budgets to be of Euro 35m for OOH (down from Euro 42m in 2009), Euro 27m for Print (down from Euro 37m), Euro 23m for Radio (down from Euro 25m) and Euro 14m for Internet / Cinema (up from Euro 13m).

The study shows that, last year, the Romanian total media market decreased by 37% in net value, at a lower level than in 2006. The most affected media was Print (-55%), followed by OOH (-40%), TV (-34%), Radio (-28%) and Internet/.Cinema (-19%).

On sectors, the top advertising investor continued to be Mobile Telecommunication services (Euro 490m, 3% up compared to 2008), followed by Medical &Optical Products (Euro 402m, up by 12%), Milk Products (Euro 329m, up by 22%), Beer (Euro 324m, up by 2%), Hygiene Products (Euro 301m, up by 1%). In top were also sectors such as Cosmetics (Euro 276m, down by 37%), Bank & Insurance Services (Euro 271m, down by 36%), Hair Care (Euro 267m, down by 23%), Lundry Products (Euro 248m, up by 1%) and Cars & 4×4 vehicles (euro 246m, down by 39%).

This was the 1st year when the Romanian top advertiser, Procter&Gamble, decreased its spendings (-9%), but kept the leader position in the top of the main advertisers on Romanian media market.

Procter &Gamble (Euro 417m, down by 9% compared to 2008) is followed by Kraft Foods (Euro 272m, +21%), Reckitt Benckiser (Euro 218m, +32%), Danone (Euro 194m, +50%), Henckel (Euro 190m, +37%), Cosmote (Euro 171m, +20%), Orange (Euro 165m, +31%) and Vodafone (Euro 163m, -2%), Coca Cola (Euro 153m, +20%) and Unilever (Euro 153m, -46%).

In what concern brand that invested the most in advertising, Adevarul had the most spectacular ad spend increase, of 504%, while other significant growth of ad expenses were operated by Jacobs (+72%), Coca Cola (+39%), Vanish (+33%) and telecom brands.

The top 10 brands with biggest ad spendings is dominated by Danone (Euro 194m, up by 50% compared to 2008), followed by Cosmote (Euro 171m, +20%), Orange (Euro 165m, +31%), Vodafone (Euro 159m, -1%), Jacobs (Euro 129m, +72%), Adevarul (Euro 85m, +504%), Nivea (Euro 85m, -15%), Burger (Euro 78m, +7%), Coca Cola (Euro 73m, +39%) and Vanish (Euro 64m, +33%).

In what concerns TV, the study mentioned that MPI – including Pro TV, Acasa TV, Pro Cinema, Sport.ro and MTV) had, in 2009, the largest budget share (53%) of total net TV ad-spend, followed by Intact (Antena 1, Antena 2, Antena 3, Euforia, Telesport ) – 24%, SBS (Prima TV, Kiss TV) – 6% and SRTV (TVR 1, TVR 2 and TVR Cultural) – 5,5%.

The total inventory sold in 2009 by TV station was 9% smaller than in 2008 and was divided between MPI (33%), Intact (22%), Prima TV (6,7%), Kanal D (6,2%) and SRTV (5%). After the crisis hit TV in 2009, the study estimates there is a new TV crisis this year.

Internet seems to be the only medium to grow, considering people are using it more and more. Social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter recorded impressive growth rates.

In what concerns online advertisers, the most active sectors were, last year, Telecom, Finance, Auto, Entertainment&Media, FMCG, Government, politics, Travel, Retail and Business&Industrial.

(This article is based on information and tables from Media Fact Book 2010)