China's advertising spending, having experienced strong growth in 2006, is expected to climb 20 percent this year and even higher in 2008, driven by next year's Olympics. Companies at home and abroad were adopting advertising strategies with a mix of traditional and new media.

CTR said China's advertising expenditure amounted to $36.9 billion last year, an annual growth of 18 percent and equal to that of the year before last. It is forecasted an increase this year. China's advertising spending is expected to grow by 20 percent in 2007.

Increasing advertising expenditure has spread across traditional media such as TV, newspapers, magazines, outdoor media and radio.

Radio saw the highest growth rate of 24 percent, and brands such as Mengniu, Lenovo, China Construction Bank, Wahaha and China Minsheng Bank entered the Top 10 Radio Advertiser List for the first time in 2006.

TV still maintains its dominant position with a 76 percent market share and 18 percent growth in 2006. The growth of outdoor ads slowed to 9 percent from the previous year's 130 percent. Newspaper and magazine ads saw growth of 4 and 10 percent.

According to TNS Media Intelligence, China, together with the United Kingdom, is now the world's third advertising market after the United States and Japan, and it is the No 1 market in terms of growth of advertising expenditure. US advertising spending grew by 3.8 percent year-on-year, while Japan and the UK saw negative growth of -0.2 and -1.8 percent in 2006.

There was still room for China's advertising market to develop, as the ratio of advertising spending to China's gross domestic product is 1.4 percent lower than that of the US at 3 percent.
 
2006 World Cup advertising on the three appointed CCTV channels from June 10 to July 10 saw spending increase by 36 percent compared with the same period the previous year. CCTV and provincial capital city TV channels outperformed average TV media in the growth of advertising spending.

Source:佚名