Olympics advertising boosts China's ad spend for first half of 2008

Beijing - China has registered a 17% increase in ad spend for the first half of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007, reaching a total of RMB 244.9 billion, according to the latest Advertising Information Services report from Nielsen.  

Television takes the largest share at 83%, or RMB 204 billion, while newspapers increased to 14% at RMB 36 billion, and magazines to 2% at RMB 5 billion.

Nielsen revealed total spending by 28 Olympic sponsors hit RMB 11.8billion, representing a 12% year-on-year increase and accounting for 5% of the entire market spend.

Richard Basil Jones, MD for Nielsen Media Research at The Nielsen Company, Asia Pacific said, "Obviously Olympic sponsors have been more aggressive in their advertising strategy in the lead-up to the Games, which has fleshed out to RMB6.6 billion in just the second quarter, a significant 28% increase from the first quarter."

China Mobile topped the list of 28 Olympic sponsors, spending RMB 2.062 billion on advertising in the first half of 2008, followed by dairy brand Yili at RMB 1.257 billion and fast food brand McDonald's at RMB 844 million.

However, KFC, which is not an Olympic sponsor, spent RMB 2.048 billion in advertising, making the top 10 spenders list and overtaking its rival McDonald's. KFC's aggressive advertising is a major contrast to McDonald's, which spent only RMB 839 million in the first six months of 2008.

In the sports apparel category, results for 2008 showed Adidas and Nike are closely trailing each other month by month, with Nike spending RMB 223 million in June compared to Adidas' highest monthly spend of RMB 159 million in March.

"An added complication in the sports category is local player and non sponsor Li Ning, which according to earlier Nielsen research enjoyed 29% consumer recognition as an Olympic sponsor, not far behind the 35% recognition for actual sponsor Adidas,"observed Basil Jones.

"Nielsen's AIS information indicates that Li Ning has avoided going head-to-head with global players in ad spending (RMB 23 million in June) but rather relies on gaining association through spokesperson arrangements with various athletes and other means."

In the beverage sector, Pepsi has also surged past Olympic sponsor Coca-Cola by spending RMB 225 million in advertising in June compared to Coca-Cola's RMB 160 million. The figure outstrips any amount previously spent by Pepsi over the past 18 months but Coca-Cola is expected to go all out to maximise its sponsorship investment during the actual Olympic Games this month.