Ad industry logs 20% rise in annual turnover

Despite lengthy power cuts and economic slowdown, annual turnover of Nepali advertising industry for the fiscal year 2010/11 increased by more than 20 percent mainly due to a marked proliferation in media, increment in the number of small trading centers being involved in advertisement, increment in rates in media houses and localized campaigns for multinational brands.

According to Advertising Association of Nepal (AAN), annual turnover of Nepali advertising industry increased to Rs 4.3 billion in 2010/11, up from Rs 3.5 billion recorded in 2009/10.

This year, AAN has published advertising turnover of five different segments -- Print, TV, Radio, Digital Theater Advertising (DTA) and Others. This is the first year that AAN has made annual turnover of DTA segment available. Others category includes billboard, posters, banners, wall painting and event-related advertising. Besides, AAN has also increased the parameter for measuring business volume in case of all the segments.

Print segment bagged the major share of advertising revenue during 2010/11, followed by TV, Radio and Others segments. “Turnover from print media increased massively in the past fiscal year mainly due to lengthy power cuts and inclusion of advertisements published different magazines under print segment,” said Raj Kumar Bhattarai, president of AAN. Bhattarai, who is also the managing director of Spectrum Advertising, said slow growth was seen in other media during the period due to strict government regulations on advertisement of alcohol and tobacco products.

Bhattarai was referring to the Supreme Court´s decision to ban billboard and outdoor advertising of alcohol and tobacco products from July last year.

“Advertising turnover increased in the past fiscal year mainly because trading business flourished, despite slowdown in manufacturing business,” said Nirmal Raj Paudel CEO of Welcome Advertising and Marketing. Though only a few local brands were launched during the period, Paudel said more multi-national companies launched their products in the market, which helped keep the industry rolling.

Angad Basnet Chettri, creative director of Outreach Nepal, said advertising turnover increased due to growing faith of clients in advertisement and creativity. “If we follow the trend closely, we see lots of localized campaigns for multinational brands in a very creative manner. This really contributed a lot for the growth of the industry,” opined Chettri.