HK2A: Television will never die

Yesterday saw the 14th annual Advertising Spending Projections 2013 by Hong Kong Advertisers Association (HK2A) at Harbour Grand Hotel – a yearly gathering of marketers after lunar year as they get a glance of where their competitors and neighbours are putting their eggs in the upcoming year.“2013 has just begun, and it has already proven itself to be an interesting year,” said Raymond Ho (pictured), chairman for the HK2A. “We have friends here who are trying to get into the free-TV sphere, proving that TV still has a lot of pull, it’ s still influential if the campaigns are pushed properly.”Despite the gloomy economic outlook, 31% of surveyed marketers admitted to increasing their advertising budget in 2013, putting 22% of their budget into TV, closely followed by internet at 18% and newspapers at 16%.This comes at a huge contrast given that marketers who considered mobile as the most effective medium increased a two fold from last year: yet only 8% of their ad budget will be put into the 2013 mobile plan.The main reasons for this paradox is the lack of integrated campaign ideas from agencies, ROI calculating system and a concrete bridge with consumer, which are the biggest concerns from marketers.“Currently, the most popular tools for mobile marketing are still QR codes and websites,” said Celia Fan, vice president of Nielsen Watch Hong Kong.“And two of the biggest concerns from marketers are the difficulty in calculating ROI and understanding customer interactions – which are particularly prominent in the mobile world.”As for print, newspaper has seen a continual decrease in the budget pie since 2011: paid newspapers, in particular, are receiving less funding from more than half of the surveyed advertisers, whereas 49% of marketers say they’ll put more eggs into free titles.The new media sphere, however, is not without its challenges. While investments in social media and mobile apps continue on an upward projectile, daily deal promotions and group buying dropped from a popularity of 30% to 13%.Surprisingly on a rise from nil in 2012 to a 25% popularity this year is event marketing. Fan attributes its growing attractiveness to successful examples in the past year, such as Harbour City’s Doreamon display.The study by Nielsen was an online survey completed by business owners, top management and senior personnel between 17 December 2012 to 1 February, 2013.