Mobile spending nears respectable levels

According to admanGo's Q1 ad spend data, mobile advertising saw a three fold increase year-on-year.The cosmetics and skincare industry expanded the most, bumping banking and investment services down to second biggest spender.But its data shows half of the top mobile players like Fortune Pharmacal, L'Occitane and Panadol, had zero mobile advertising spending in 2012: yet it placed third, fourth and seventh, respectively for the first quarter of 2013.Samsung and Estée Lauder, both had growth in excess of 1000%, but this is from a low base.Overall spending in March saw a decline of 6% to HK$9.6 billion, a double digit decline from 2012 and the lowest since August 2009.Men's skincare, cameras and the insurance sector in particular, declined more than 30%.HSBC shifted its media placement from TVC and outdoor to interactive, slumping its YOY decrease to 30%: its online adspend, however, expanded from 13% to 45% while its outdoor spend plummeted from 30% to 8%.Carbonated drinks jumped by seven times YOY with 85% of adspend coming from Coca-Cola. P&G took the crown as top advertiser in the first quarter with HK$249 million, a 35% YOY increase.Free newspapers continued to steal share of print spending, seeing a yearly increase of 24%. Paid newspapers and magazines saw little expansions and The Sun, Hong Kong Economic Times and Mingpao even saw declines. The biggest free print winners include Sky Post, Headline Daily and am730.