Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
WARC researchers had forecasted that 2018 would be one of the best years for advertising since the financial crisis. It turned out they underestimated it when they announced a 4.7-percent increase, as it reached a growth rate of 5.4 percent. Such growth was primarily driven by major events, such as the FIFA World Cup and the Winter Olympics.
For 2019, they announced a slower growth globally. One of the exceptions is the area of Eastern and Central Europe, which is forecast to grow by 11 percent thanks to stronger growth of the Russian market. If we look at the digitally-developed Western Europe, this year’s growth will amount to just 3.5 percent.
Television remains the strongest advertising channel, though mobile could overtake it thanks to the predicted growth of 22 percent. Researchers forecast that online advertising will grow by 12 percent, but this comes packed with some bad news. If we take away advertising on Google and Facebook, which represents 61.4 percent of all internet advertising investments, the investment in this communication channel will be reduced by more than 7 percent. Globally, internet advertising represents 46.7 percent of advertising cake, while “traditional” channels command 53.3 percent. Advertising investments in print media continue to fall. By 2019, a 9.5 percent drop is expected in this field, while radio will grow by 1 percent.
But how is the situation in the Adriatic region? What are the indications from the first three months of this year? We asked this question to several agency directors and here are their answers.
Damir Ciglar, CEO, Imago Ogilvy
ImagoOgilvy is a creative agency, so we can talk about the rise in budgets from the position of creativity and production. Yes, creative and production budgets are increasing, but that’s due to increased number of client activities, not due to increase of budgets for individual activities, which would actually be a real indicator of healthy growth in advertising budgets and market growth.
As for the new clients, thanks to our great reputation, we are getting more and more calls of advertisers for collaboration, and we’re trying to respond to inquiries of attractive advertisers (attractive by any criteria), keeping in mind that we are not already engaged by a competitor. However, here as well it’s more about reshuffling of advertisers among agencies, rather than appearance of new advertisers. The new ones are mostly smaller start-ups without budgets, or with very modest ones.
Vlatko Dimovski, Regional Director, McCann
Perhaps we can’t talk about general growth of budgets, but we can certainly say that awareness for investment in communication and advertising is higher than it was five years ago for example. Clients’ business results and the general business situation are entirely positive. Investments are being made in innovations, new products, we are constantly talking about digital transformation, new opportunities are opening for clients, and consequently for us on the agency side. At the same time, both clients and we are increasingly talking about integration and regional models. The Adriatic market is becoming increasingly relevant to all of us.
Sašo Pešev, CEO, New Moment New Ideas Company Skopje
Macedonia – sorry North Macedonia – has finally emerged from a multi-year political crisis that has led to a major recession in advertising budgets. Fortunately for our industry, and certainly for the sake of the whole society, Macedonia has finally started moving forward. Or at least we all have such an impression, and we know that it has a direct impact on increasing public spending. Because the economic crisis is basically a psychological crisis that arises as a result of uncertainty.
I still don’t know what’s the annual growth, but I will launch an initiative that our MAAM association soon releases accurate data to the public.
As for specific clients, I expect budget growth with clients who are traditionally doing good, but were quite passive in the last few years, such as clients from automotive and financial industries (banking and insurance companies).
As an eternal optimist, I expect growth in local, small and medium-sized companies.
Žarko Sakan, President, New Moment New Ideas Company
When it comes to advertising budgets we see small but stable growth, which makes us very happy after a long string of years in which budgets were declining.
New clients emerge from the sphere of IT services, ie software companies that offer mass market services, such as Yandex and similar.
There are also clients from our region who offer their services on the global market, which is very interesting to us.
As the countries in the region become more stable, so the interest of foreign investors is growing, and lately we’ve been seeing more and more investments from the Middle East and China.
Ivan Stanković, President, Communis
It is very difficult to answer this question without the exact data. If we do not have them – and I don’t – then we can only talk about impressions, which can be correct or incorrect, and should be observed as such.
Off the top of my head, and based on experience with our clients, most are somewhere on the level of last year’s budgets, and there are even few cases where budgets have been reduced. Within these planned budgets, there is a noticeable increase in the part related to digital – the growth is perhaps not too big, but it is visible, and has a tendency to grow further… there’s more investment, more planning, but also more expectation.
As for new clients in the market, they are mostly companies with a reduced volume of activity and lower advertising budgets, and are hard to notice. The lead in this period is still held by the big players…
There is noticeable escalation of the “war” between the two leading cable operators – Telecom and SBB – who have been increasingly advertising their channels, and further growth can be expected in this area. In general, television stations, programs and providers are starting to increasingly struggle for the attention of viewers and advertisers.
Otherwise – as is tradition – the first quarter is mostly a ‘prep’ quarter when campaigns are being prepared to ‘explode’ in the next quarter. Whether they will “explode” or not depends, among other things, on whether the elections will be called or not, which will influence the advertising market as well I’m sure.
Senad Zaimović, CEO, Fabrika Sarajevo
When it comes to budgets of commercial advertisers, there’s a tendency to stagnate and/or even slowly decline. There is aa noticeable saturation in favour of digital advertising – an increasing part of the budget is invested in communication through digital marketing, social networks, display advertising and PR.
The appearance of new advertisers is primarily related to digital marketing. Due to the relative ease of technical creation and precision of targeting, digital media has proven to be an efficient advertising platform
In the first three months, there was a significant increase in investment in communication among various non-governmental organizations and subcontractors of international and government agencies (various social and economic projects, etc.).
Nikola Žinić, Co-Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Bruketa&Žinić&Grey
Although budgets have largely stagnated globally in 2018, this year is characterized by a growth of optimism, and hence the budgets. What is certain is that the reshuffling of investments is continuing.
Digital channels, personalization and innovation are important focuses, and advertisers in Croatia are closely following this trend. Being more personal and creative in talking to consumers, under their conditions, is a real challenge we face.
Zvezdana Žujo, Director, Communis Sarajevo
2019 began cheerfully and relaxed, and then suddenly everything started rolling.
Some new clients appeared, new projects of existing clients, new tenders, then even some more tenders, new services emerged in the agency… and some new kids also appeared whose energy stirred up this first quarter.
Since I closely follow the happenings in the market, the changes haven’t happened only in Communis. I see the client structure has significantly changed in other agencies as well. Additional profiling is an absolute hit, and as client budgets grow, so did our desire to do the best projects ever.
I wish us all a happy and successful year.
