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fter year-on-year (yoy) growth in advertisement spending on television and in print media slowed down in the second quarter of the year, the July-September period has seen a significant recovery, according to Nielsen Indonesia.

'€œCompared to 2014, we saw the growth of ad spending in the second quarter down to 6 percent from 12 percent last year [...] the political campaign last year was the main engine for ad spending growth,'€ Nielsen Indonesia media director Hellen Katherina said on Wednesday.

'€œIn the third quarter of this year, however, we see signals of recovery.'€

According to an industry study by Nielsen, the government appeared to be the biggest ad spender in the July-September period.

The study, sourced from Nielsen Advertising Information Services, revealed that government and political organizations spent Rp 4.58 trillion (US$333.5 million) on ads in first nine months of the year, a 15 percent decrease from last year, albeit much higher than spending on ads for consumer goods.

Hair care, the segment with the greatest spending among consumer goods, merely recorded Rp 3.35 trillion.

'€œThe advertisements are not from ministries or the central government only, as about 56 percent are from local administrations,'€ Hellen said.

She underlined that most advertising by local administrations was for improved municipal services, such as the one-stop integrated service (PTSP) for business permit applications.

East Kalimantan'€™s provincial administration stood out as the biggest spender with advertising expenses of Rp 404.9 billion in the first nine months of this year, while the Riau administration spent Rp 355.3 billion.

'€œMaybe because the areas are investment destinations, with palm oil in Riau and mining in East Kalimantan,'€ Hellen added.

East Kalimantan has targeted realized investment of Rp 25.9 trillion this year, according to the provincial administration'€™s official website. The province had already pocketed Rp 20.6 trillion in investment after the first half of the year.

Meanwhile, Riau has targeted Rp 18.5 trillion of realized investment this year and has garnered Rp 12 trillion as of October.

'€œThe advertisements are usually advertisements to congratulate on big holidays or [simply] make announcements,'€ Hellen said.

Government spending was also mostly allocated to newspaper ads, accounting for 77 percent of total ad spending.

However, the generous spending did not help stop the continuing decline of ads spending in the print media.

Spending in magazines has seen a 13 percent drop yoy to Rp 1.4 trillion in the first nine months, while ads spending in newspapers fell by 6 percent to Rp 22.8 trillion. The same trend was seen in the first half, when print ad spending fell 8 percent yoy.

Hellen said the decrease in spending had resulted in a number of print media companies going out of business.

'€œThere'€™s a lot of possible causes, like how people can read news everywhere now. And there are a lot of franchise-based magazines that also suffered from higher costs from the strengthening dollar [against the rupiah],'€ she said.

The number of newspapers decreased from 117 to 101, while that of magazines decreased from 170 to 132.

TV still drives overall ad spending, as it grew by 8 percent to Rp 62 trillion yoy, faster than the combined TV and print media growth of 3 percent to Rp 86.2 trilllion.

The modest overall increase was still remarkable, given that there were no political events or festivities in the third quarter, Hellen said.

Noodle products Indomie and Sedaap topped the products advertised, with spending amounting to Rp 723 billion and Rp 571.2 billion, respectively.

Travel website Traveloka.com, though, saw the most aggressive ads growth, with spending rising to Rp 547 billion, seven times last year'€™s amount. (fsu)