10 industries and brands with biggest adspend in HK in 2021

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There was no dearth of campaigns which featured MIRROR last year in Hong Kong. According to a study conducted by advertising monitoring service provider admanGo, members of MIRROR were featured in more than 180 brands in 2021, while four brands even featured the entire team. These brands included the likes of Samsung, McDonald’s Hong Kong, Deliveroo Hong Kong and csl who had the full team, front and centre, in their campaigns.

In addition to MIRROR, the report also uncovered Hong Kong's adspend growth last year. Local adspend in 2021 recorded a 29% year-on-year increase, amounting to HK$29.4 billion (US$3.77 billion). In terms of seasonal growth, Q2 was the most impressive as it registered a 39% year-over-year growth. The top 10 industries, which are the biggest spenders when it comes to ad dollars, all recorded year-on-year growth in adspend, said the report.

Gaining the top spot was the banking and investment services industry and its annual growth was 57%. Adspend in the pharmaceuticals and healthcare industry was the second highest with an annual growth of 9%, followed by the property and real estate and the toiletries and household industries. Their annual growth rates were 29% and 24% respectively. top 10 adspend indutries 2021 Adspend of the cosmetics and skincare industry recorded a 68% year-on-year growth, ranking first among all industries in terms of growth rate. The study also highlighted the big spenders in Hong Kong. HSBC topped the list and its adspend increased by 68% last year. P&G ranked second and its adspend annual growth rate was 47%, followed by DFI Retail Group (10%) and Vita Green Health Products (117%).
top 10 adspend businesses 2021
Lastly, adspend of all major media outlets recorded notable year-on-year growth as well. Mobile adspend saw a 50% year-on-year growth in 2021, followed by social media (42%) and desktop (32%). Speaking of social media, adspend in Instagram increased by 67% last year, while Facebook also registered a 36% increase.

Meanwhile, in 2022 APAC market looks optimistic seeing an expansion of 11.2%, inching closer to the global average of 12% and in line with the pre-pandemic long-term regional growth. However, according to global reports by MAGNA, uncertainty remains as to whether the crisis is fully over or whether it will still see case rises and falls throughout 2022.

The report also said that digital advertising revenues in Hong Kong grew by 30%, making up 45% of total budgets. This was the strongest growth, since 2017, led by mobile device spending, which increased by 36% and represents 73% of the total digital advertising budgets. Other formats that saw a significant increase were social media (35%), video (35%) and search advertising (34%). Additionally, the market's digital video landscape continues to be the strongest, making up 43% of the digital spending - one of the highest totals globally.

Meanwhile, linear advertising revenues grew by 20% this year, reaching US$2.1 billion, making up 55% of total budgets. While this was the market's best performance for linear advertising on record they only made up 89% of its pre-pandemic values. TV spending grew by 25%, recovering its losses during the pandemic. Print saw a small jump of 8%, but only reached 63% of its pre-pandemic values due to its 42% decline in 2020.

The report added that brand marketing has changed in Hong Kong due to the pandemic, as demands on discounts and bonuses for linear media increased.

Furthermore, there are more ad-hoc planning and last-minute campaign changes in reaction to market changes, and more efforts spent on contingency plans. Finally, there are also stronger eCommerce and social commerce efforts from advertisers.

As such, Hong Kong's advertising spending is expected to grow by 8% to reach US$4.1bn in 2022; primarily due to the forecasted post-pandemic environment in the market.

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