Who would have thought that at the dawn of the new millennium, our world will witness bizarre events that would bring massive impact to the globe we live in? Although the signs of transformation started coming in at snail's pace but its repercussions were of unprecedented level. Exactly at the same time, the predictions started to flow from the distinguished leaders of the industry for the global advertising community to brace themselves for a rocky ride.
This was the time of a great transformation, not only that the size of the cake was shrinking but as they say "too few slices were being offered". The global advertising community buckled up to the desperate times and it seemed that these times will dictate the future.
But the will of human spirit to survive at any cost, this also was the time to gather the energies and renew the pledge to work harder and show the people around the world that the global advertising community is ready to embrace the changes.
Despite of shrinking economies on a global scale, budget cuts, mergers and fierce competitions, revolutionary insights and sharp analysis were developed that helped to create a breathing environment.Practically and temperamentally, the advertising community prepared new strategies, started to turn out refreshing new ideas and concepts according to the budgetary requirements. These conscious decisions brought far-reaching effects to the industry.
In the last decade, the world has seen many corporate crashes related to slow down of the economy in different countries, but the decisions taken at the dawn of a new century kicked in to save the day for the advertising community.
The global advertising industry climbed out of recession last year and posted 10.6% annual increase. As per the figures, 2010 was the year of recovery for the advertising industry. "All global regions and every traditional medium (television, radio, newspapers and magazines) recorded a positive turnaround with highest percentage ad spend increases coming from Middle East/Africa and Latin America, which rose by 26.7% and 21.2% respectively. Overall 23 out of 37 global markets posted double-digit advert growth last year is a clear indication that advertisers regained confidence to spend again after a weak 2009, where every region except for Asia Pacific posted declines."
Two of the hardest hit sectors during the global downturn, automotive and finance, returned from their recession hiatus and increased ad spend by 20.3% and 17.9% respectively. Six automotive companies were among the top 20 global advertisers in 2010.
Ad spend for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) increased 14.6% in 2010 and the sector's share of ad spend also increased from 23.9% to 24.9%. FMCG spend in Middle East/Africa increased by 34.3%, Latin America (+23.9%) and Asia Pacific (+16%).
According to an industry expert; "Fast moving consumer goods and emerging markets will continue to lead global advertising trends. One in every four ad spent last year was on fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and the focus remains firmly on key developing regions."
According to statistics coming from USA, all traditional advertising media types showed increases in 2010, particularly television which rebounded 13.1% and increased to 62% of all ad spend share - the highest on record and up from 60.6% the previous year. Radio advertising rose 8.5%, followed by newspapers (+7%). Magazines recorded the slowest growth of all media types at 4.9% globally and only posted double-digit growth of 14.9% in Latin America.
Today in 2011, we are close to the fourth quarter and are keeping the tradition of advertising alive and reaching out to the people throughout the world. The kingdom of "sights, sounds and words" has managed to do more than what was expected from it in a very respectable, befitting and visible manner.
It is also very heart warming that although we are a collective body spreading over different countries into various cultures spinning around wide array of demands and expectations, so we can easily summarise that we have written a history instead of becoming a history.
I offer my heartiest felicitations to the participants of AdAsia 2011 being held in New Delhi, India who are coming from all corners of the world and also to the organisers of this huge event. We all are keeping our fingers crossed about this significant event and hope that this event would work as a spring board and provide a prestigious platform not only to the South Asian advertising fraternity but to the global advertising community as well.