The RMB/BER Business Confidence Index (BCI) for Q3 2019 has hit a 20-year low; it is not surprising that the state of ad investment is dismal.
The last time I looked at the Nielsen numbers, they made for depressing reading. From January to July 2019, overall ad investment in traditional media was down by 0.5% over the same period in 2018.
Of course, Nielsen tracks rate card investment, and cannot identify discounted or packaged deals, so the real investment levels will be notably lower than that. Predictably, print was a major driver of the decline, down by 19.7% on rate-card and out of home was down by 8%. Radio, which had seemed fairly buoyant over the recent years, showed a 3.9% slip, while TV showed a 6.7% increase. Given that TV is where the most serious discounting takes place, it is likely that this seemingly bulletproof medium has also experienced a drop in real investment.
Cinema, however, seems to be experiencing outrageously good fortune, with its share almost doubling to 1.5% of the market. Even taking this with the mandatory pinch of salt, there is clearly something happening with this medium.