Online advertising set to rebuff global crisis
Online advertising spending in China will continue to grow rapidly next year but the growth of the online search-related advertising, where Baidu.com dominates, will slow down, industry officials told a digital advertising conference yesterday in Shanghai.
China’s online advertising spending, including display and search, will grow between 30 and 40 percent year-on-year in 2009, despite the global financial crisis, according to Hans Yu, chief executive of CR-Nielsen, Nielsen’s China joint venture on research of China’s Internet market.
Traditional media advertising income will also increase in 2009 but with a slower growth rate.
On CCTV’s 2009 prime-time advertising auction last week, sales climbed to a record high of 9.3 billion yuan (US$1.36 billion), up 15 percent from a year ago.
“Some firms like auto makers and real property developers have cut spending in newspapers and television. Instead, they have increased their spending online,” Yu said during ad:tech Shanghai 2008, a two-day exhibition and forum, which opened yesterday.
Online spending from consumer brands, like Nike and Coca-cola, and online game operators increased spending on QQ, said S.Y. Lau, Tencent’s executive vice president of online media.
Tencent, the country’s No. 1 online instant message operator, will seek more clients in the auto industry in 2009, Lau said.
In the third quarter, China’s online spending reached 5.16 billion yuan, 78.0 percent up from a year before, attributed to the influence of the Beijing Olympic Games this year, according to iResearch, a Shanghai-based Internet consulting firm.
US online advertising spending will remain in single-digit growth or even drop in 2009, said iResearch.
Click fraud (where phony hits are created on advertisements), credit search results and distribution channel problems will affect the future income of search firms, including Baidu, according to Nielsen’s Yu.
Last week, Baidu was the subject of two critical reports by CCTV that questioned its paid-link business and whether advertisers influenced the company’s search results. Robin Li, Baidu’s founder and chief executive, was scheduled to speak during the ad:tech event but was absent yesterday.
Tags: Internet