Jan ad spend manages positive growth

• Ad spend stable in Malaysia
• P&G top with RM8.7m in Jan
• Audio and video preferred mediums

Malaysia - Ad spend in Malaysia has not yet taken a dip as the Nielsen Company found positive growth for January 2009, citing Procter & Gamble (P&G) as the highest spender for the month.

In its February media update assessing January performance, Carat Media Services cited Nielsen's figures listing P&G as first of the top 10 advertisers with a total spend of RM8.7 million, followed by Celcom at RM7.6 million and Nestle at RM7.1 million.

Free to view television took most advertising dolalrs with RM145.1 million - an increase of 12% from last year's RM129.2 million. Investments in print took a 4% dip from RM268.3 million in January last year to RM258.6 million this year, while magazines saw a 2% hike.

There was also significant adex increase for point-of-sale, outdoor and cinema.

Citing an online survey by YouthSays - a survey by youth to find out the favourite brands in the 15-35 age group, brands like Twisties, Mentos, 100Plus, Johnson & Johnson, Casio, Adidas, Nokia and Acer were the top according to a sample of 10,208 Malaysians.

The youth polled in a nationalistic way voting for Proton and Perodua as their preferred brands compared to foreign automotive manufacturers while Maybank was successful in gaining the attention and favour of the young ones.

It took a total of 65.1% votes with CIMB following closely (52.8%) in the bank category while KFC was the preferred fast food outlet, followed by McDonald's and Pizza Hut, second and third respectively.