Advertising in China: launches amount to 36 billion U.S. dollars in first half/2008

In the first half of 2008, China’s total advertising launch reached 244.9 billion yuan (over 36 billion U.S. dollars) , an increase of 17% compared with the same period last year, according to well-known global media and information group Nielsen latest report of ad information services, Xinhua News reported.

Among the three types of major media Nielsen monitored, television continued to lead with 83% of the advertising market share, a total of 204 billion yuan; and print media advertising made progress with an increase of 14 percent. Among them, newspapers and magazine ads amounted to 36 billion and 5 billion yuan.

And the arrival of the Olympic Games clearly has stimulated China’s advertising market. By the end of June, according to the Nielsen results, 28 Olympic sponsors had invested ads of 11.8 billion yuan, grew by 12 percent compared with last year, and the total market share reached 5 percent.

“Advertisers have now returned to expected advertising levels following a lull in May as a consequence of the Sichuan earthquake,” said Richard Basil Jones, Managing Director, Nielsen Media Research, The Nielsen Company, Asia Pacific. “Obviously Olympic sponsors have been more aggressive in their advertising strategy in the lead up to the Games, which has fleshed out to RMB 6.6 billion in just the second quarter, a significant 28 percent increase from the first quarter.”