Today’s post is different from the content we typically publish, but it doesn’t make it less interesting. So, we are going to deal with overviews of advertising markets in Ukraine and the world.
Why Ukraine? Because TRACKLAM is based in Ukraine. We have learned so much about all types of advertising-related activities and things, yet we recently couldn’t clearly define what’s happening on the Ukrainian advertising market and how it compares to the rest of the world. So, armed with statistics and research data, let’s get going.
General stats
Ukrainian market of advertising has been recently heavily affected by the political-economical crisis in the East of Ukraine. The years 2014-2016 have seen a drastic decline up to 75% in all segments of the advertising market, and it was only last year, in 2017, that the situation has improved and overall the media market has seen the growth of about 40% in 2017, and at least 26% increase is predicted for 2018.
Globally, however, the previous year wasn’t as successful for media owners, with overall ad sales growth being only 3,7%, significantly less than +5,3% in 2016. The reason behind the decline is absence of significant sports events or elections in 2017.
Digital advertising
In Ukraine, this branch has shown the fastest growth rate during the recent years, with about 38% bigger total spend in 2017 compared to the previous year, according to VRK.ua. It also was the only media to keep growing during the decline of 2014-2016.
In 2017, its fastest growing segments are mobile (+70%), digital video (+55%) and search engine ads (+50%), as shows the research by Ukrainian Internet Association. The trend is expected to continue in 2018, due to an increase in the share of the video along with YouTube, and mobile traffic.
Across the planet, the situation with digital advertising is no different – it’s demonstrating rapid growth and its primary asset is mobile advertising, which can be explained by more and more users owning portable devices with Internet connection and a growing number of total Internet users. In 2017, digital has become the world’s #1 channel, surpassing even linear TV.
Television
In Ukraine, in 2017 TV advertising has seen the largest number of brands willing to communicate their message in the past 6 years, and its total ad sales went up 29% and is predicted to experience 25% increase in 2018. Interestingly, direct TV advertising shows a slower pace of growth (27%) than TV sponsorship, which reached 37% in 2017.
What differentiates TV in Ukraine from other Western countries is the fact that the whole industry is unprofitable. It is controlled by several media holdings headed by influential figures who use TV to create the right image, the revenue being secondary.
In the world, TV remains one of the most popular advertising media, but it loses to digital ads and in 2017 the TV ad spend went down by 1% for the first time in many years. Nevertheless, according to Magna Global research, it will continue to be a popular advertising media, although slowly declining in favour of digital.
OOH ads
In Ukraine, OOH ads follow digital and TV according to the growth rate. The OOH inventory has been carefully reassessed in 2017 across the country, which found that OOH market had grown by almost UAH 1 billion (about $40 million). This industry sales are likely to go up by a quarter this year.
Globally, as seen in the picture above, out of home media has been showing stable growth during the past years and is evolving thanks to digitalization and expected to keep its market share in the future. Thanks to new technologies, OOH is expanding its possibilities and attracting new investments.
Roadside billboards remain its key asset, but the share of digital OOH is getting bigger and transit and street furniture segments are getting much interest from advertisers as well.
Print ads
Both in Ukraine and the world, newspaper and magazine advertising has been in decline in the recent years and, sadly, the tendency is expected to continue.
In spite of the obvious advantages like clearly defined audience and location, it is getting harder and harder for print ads to compete with other media. Therefore, companies are preferring multiplatform solutions with integrated newspaper and magazine ads.
Conclusion
Looks like in spite of the military invasion in the East of Ukraine, and political-economic crisis during the recent years, advertising market in Ukraine develops along with the world’s tendencies – digital ads are quickly evolving, while OOH is the only traditional medium that’s growing slowly, but steadily. Other traditional advertising channels – TV and print ads are gradually losing to “stronger” competitors.
P.S. In case you aren’t familiar with TRACKLAM – it’s an online ad network that deals with all types of media online, letting you start an ad campaign within one interface, without leaving your office, and saves your time and efforts. More details are here:
