Covid-19: While digital ad spending is up, primetime ads are down

If there was ever a time for digital marketing to come to the fore, it is now. Due to Covid-19, billboards that used to be seen by millions now loom over empty thoroughfares as people keep their outdoor activities to a minimum.

It’s a similar picture for print media. The South China Morning Post cut salaries after suffering a 50% drop in revenues as retail channels for its print edition shut down. It’s now hoping to turn the 50 million active users that flocked to its digital edition during the pandemic into paying subscribers.

Fellow media outlet Singapore Press Holdings, which had been struggling in its shift to digital, shuttered its Malaysian magazine unit Blu Inc in April out of fear that Covid-19 will further impact its “falling revenue and reduced circulation.”

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It’s time to address the elephant in the room. While Covid-19 has hastened the rise of digital ads – spending has increased despite the pandemic – it has also sped up the decline of traditional media advertising.

As more people work from home and stay away from metropolitan areas, human traffic fizzled out in cities worldwide. Media consumption patterns for television and radio have also evened out around the clock rather than coming in peaks, leading to lower advertising costs as the demand for slots has also spread out.

“2020 will be particularly painful for traditional formats,” says Laura Quigley, senior vice president of Integral Ad Science. “Ad investment [for traditional media] will fall by 16.3% this year, equal to a dip of US$51.4 billion from 2019’s levels.”

Traditional media is not dying out – it’s just growing slower

Breaking it down further, Quigley predicts that out of home (OOH) advertising, which comes in the form of billboards and signs, will be the most affected. “TV investment will be down 33% across the first half of the year, then print (down 37%), and then the hardest hit, OOH (down 49%),” she says.

But although it looks as if traditional media is dying a quick yet painful death, media experts tell Tech in Asia otherwise. In terms of consumption, it seems that print, television, radio, and OOH, in particular, are now getting a second wind – which could bode well for the future once advertisers jump back in.

“Traditional media is not dying out. It’s just growing slower,” says Ranjeet Laungani, head of North Asia at Nielsen Global Media. In a study, Nielsen found that media consumption patterns were “up across the board,” comparing Covid-19 figures in April with those from the same period in 2019.

Photo credit: 123rf

Digital ad spend grows despite Covid-19

The evolution of billboards

Primetime no more