Companies all over the world were urged yesterday to pay more attention to greater China's emerging advertisement market if they want to effectively reach target customers in this region, an international media research institute said yesterday.
ACNeilson's latest media research found that shampoo is the most frequently sold product on TV and in newspaper and radio advertisements in the ACNeilson-delineated greater Chinese market, which includes Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, ACNeilson's media executive director Linda Chang (
A total of NT$332 million was spent on shampoo advertising in Taiwanese media during the second quarter. No. 2 on the spending list was credit-card advertising with government-sponsored SARS-related advertising coming third, Chang said yesterday at a ceremony to launch ACNeilson's new advertising information service.
The service will monitor 58 TV channels, 111 newspapers, 127 magazines and 10 radio stations on a daily basis.
Spending on shampoo advertising ranked fifth in Hong Kong and second in China in the second quarter, Chang added.
Telecommunication advertising for such things as mobile phones and network services are also popular in the greater Chinese market, the report said.
Despite its sagging real-estate market, spending on residential-property advertising ranked No. 1 in Hong Kong, followed by skin-care products and record albums, the media rating agency's research said.
"NT$174 million-worth of property advertisements were placed [in the second quarter], aiming to attract Hong Kongers to invest in both local and Chinese real-estate markets," Chang said.
China, however, saw as much as NT$2 billion spent on traditional nutrients and vitamin advertisements in the second quarter, followed by NT$1.3 billion on shampoo advertisements and NT$741 million on residential-property advertisements.
During the second quarter, companies spent around NT$19.3 billion advertising in Taiwan, NT$33.6 billion advertising in Hong Kong and NT$177.1 billion advertising in China, according to Chang.
Although growth in Hong Kong's and Taiwan's ad market has been flat for the past few years as a result of the economic recession, Forrest Didier, managing director of Nielsen Media Research, Asia Pacific, expressed optimism in the greater Chinese market.
"There'll be an increased focus on the greater China market and Chinese consumers by multinational as well as local advertisers," Didier said yesterday.
"China is considered to be an emerging market and people are beginning to realize the benefits of advertising there," he said.
Didier, however, noted that regulations in China's media market may still raise concerns.
"Free-market forces are not completely set in place there, but we think that will change," he said.
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