Report: Asia ad spend jumps in 2022 with Malaysia seeing 8% growth due to digital

While 2022 might have been a hard year for many in the agency and tech sectors, investment in advertising across Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan remained positive, jumping by almost US$55 billion in 2022 - an overall increase of 12%.

The rise was spearheaded by digital advertising, which grew by a whopping 64% from 2021, followed by outdoor at 19% and TV at 6%. As crowds returned to the movies, cinema advertising also rebounded, growing by 131%, while radio dropped 8%, said new data from Nielsen Ad Intel.

Nielsen Ad Intel, which tracks competitive brand level ad activity across the entire media landscape, drilled down across selected Asian markets and highlighted that at a country, rather than channel level, Singapore led the year-on-year increase with growth of 10.17%. Thailand and Malaysia followed closely with growth of 9.12% and 8.05% respectively.

Singapore’s adspend reached US$1.6 billion in 2022 - an increase of 10.17%. The highest spend came from social, followed by TV and outdoor. The list of top spenders was dominated by e-commerce and retail brands, with Lazada, NTUC FairPrice, and Amazon leading the pack.

Malaysia's ad spend reached US$1.5 billion in 2022 - a growth of 8.05%. TV, digital, and newspapers had the highest share. Fast food saw the highest growth, increasing 35% as McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut topped the category list.

Online shopping and gaming led adspend in Indonesia, which reached US$19.2 billion for the year - a 5.02% increase from 2021, with TV, internet, and print media leading the way. Unilever, Mayora, and Valorant were the top three spenders.

Nielsen Asia president (Commercial), Arnaud Frade said the ad intel numbers for 2022 show marketers backing advertising as the best, most cost-effective way to connect brands with customers and keep them engaged. What they also demonstrate is that marketers need to be more savvy than ever about how they invest those ad dollars, utilising the very best data, in order to get an edge on their competition and maximise their ROI.

“Those kind of insights are not only an advantage, but absolutely crucial in the highly competitive Asian market,” added on Nielsen Asia managing director (Advertisers), Aaron Rigby.

“As the advertising environment becomes more complex, brands, agencies and media owners need the latest advertising intelligence to differentiate themselves from the competition and to carve out the best path forward for their brands and media. Nothing does better than Nielsen’s Ad Intel in helping you understand the advertising around you to improve your own,” he said.

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