According to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, advertising spending in the US fell 0.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, mostly as a result of a decrease in spending on network TV.
Internet advertising continues its upwards climb and rose to 31.9%, Network TV advertising was down 8.5% while national cable TV was up 2.5%. Advertising spending on Spanish-language television was also up, by 4 percent which was attributd to an emphasis on targeted marketing. Brian Lane, the senior VP of client strategy and product development for Nielsen Monitor-Plus said that last year’s Torino Olympics in February 2006 contributed to a higher than typical first quarter, resulting in a decline in TV ad spend for Q1 2007. “If you removed the Olympics’ ad spend from the Network numbers last year, those numbers would actually be up this quarter.”
Advertising spending for the top ten companies for the first quarter 2007 reached $4 billion, down 15 percent from the same time period in 2006. Nine of the ten advertisers decreased budgets with DaimlerChrysler the only exception, with 3.3 percent growth. The largest decline, of 35.8 percent, came from General Motors. Procter & Gamble remains the biggest advertiser in the U.S., spending $749.8 million in the quarter, down 10.7 percent. Time Warner’s adspend fell 17.8 percent and The Walt Disney Company’s was down 15.8 percent to $373.4 million. Other companies in the top ten include AT&T, Ford Motor Co., Johnson & Johnson and Verizon Communications.
Nielsen Product Placement Service reported that product placement occurrences in prime-time broadcast network programming had increased for Q1 2007. The top ten programs featured 8,893 occurrences compared to 8,793 occurrences for the same time period last year. American Idol lead the field in terms of the number of product placements, with 3,113 occurrences vs. 3,052 occurrences in Q1 2006. In second place is Amazing Race All Stars with 1,014 occurrences, followed by Beauty and the Geek with 946. The Apprentice surged to fourth place with 945 occurrences, compared to last year when the program ranked seventh overall with 607 occurrences.
“The top 10 programs for product placement this quarter represent nearly half of the activity we tracked on English-language broadcast networks,’ said Annie Touliatos, the director of product development and marketing for Nielsen Product Placement Service. “Although we see substantial upwards trends with drama programs engaged in product placement, reality and lifestyle shows continue to dominate our Top 10 rankings.”
Source: World Screen; Nielsen
