Nuggets. Flashback 2018: Ad & Marketing trends A & M Trends

Korean chaebol Samsung whizzed past American FMCG major P&G as the world’s largest advertiser, spending an estimated $11.2 billion — a 13 per cent increase over the year before — on promotions. By contrast, P&G’s spend was $10.5 billion in the year ending June 2018, unchanged from the previous year, according to AdAge estimates. Significantly, P&G had shaved off $200 million from its ad budget in 2017, cutting spends on digital advertising, saying customers did not want to see ads. Personal care brand L’Oreal from France stood third, with spends of $8.6 billion, followed by Unilever and Nestle.

The fastest growing spender during the year was China’s Alibaba, which doubled its worldwide ad spend to $2.7 billion.

With Asians emerging as big advertisers, it’s not surprising that the APAC region is forecast to be the leading contributor to global ad spend growth. In 2018, a Dentsu Aegis report said APAC would contribute 39.7 per cent, that is $8.1 billion of the total $20.3 billion incremental global increase, in ad spend. This is led by markets China, Japan, India and the Philippines. Investment in India’s ad spend was also expected to grow by 10.5 per cent to reach ₹624 billion in 2018. In 23 of the 59 markets analysed, digital was expected to become the leading media type. In the US, digital spend is projected to surpass TV spend by 2019, capturing 36 per cent of all spend.

E-commerce players in India end 2018 on an uncertain note, with the end of the year seeing a government crackdown on deep discounting and cash-back schemes. Also, no longer can the Flipkarts and Amazons of the world enter into exclusive deals with brands, such as smartphone manufacturers have done with etailers to launch their products first on online platforms. The new norms come into force in February 2019 — though things could change if the etailers protest. However, analysts say etailers in India will be forced to change their models. Let’s wait and watch.

2018 was marked by some big exits, most notably Sir Martin Sorrell’s abrupt departure from WPP. There were charges of personal misconduct against the WPP chief, widely known as the Oracle of advertising. All eyes are on Sorrell’s new venture S4 Capital to see if it can shake up things. Meanwhile at WPP, where company insider Mark Read took over the reins, the year closed with JWT merging with Wunderman to create Wunderman JWT, a sign of digital domination. On the client side, another sudden departure notice has been the announcement of Unilever Chief Paul Polman’s exit, precipitated by the row over the company’s plans to move headquarters. Opinion is that company lifer Alan Jope, the beauty unit head, who takes over the reins of the consumer goods behemoth, will navigate it away from the kitchen and more in the direction of personal care.

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