Hong Kong July ad spend hits record high, Canon biggest spender: admanGo

Canon jumped 12 places to come out on top of the rankings as the highest spending brand over the past year, with total adspend of US$3.47 million, a significant jump of 78 per cent from the previous year. This was primarily due to the company promoting its EOS 600D Digital SLR camera  - for which it spent US$1.9 million alone. It also spent a further US$1.2 million in an effort to boost sales of the Legria HF M41 HD Digital Camcorder.

HSBC followed in second place with an ad spend of US$3.3 million, while McDonald's also jumped 12 places to number three with just below that. Beauty skin care company SK-II and pharmaceutical brand Mannings each spent around US$3.2 million, rounding out the top five firms.

Banking and investment services remained the market's top spending industry, investing a total of US$42 million, a 17 per cent increase year-on-year. The other big spending industries in Hong Kong were toiletries and household goods, cosmetics and skincare, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, and retail. 

The study also discloses that the gap in market share between free and paid newspapers has narrowed over the past few years, with the latter starting to build up a steady readership base. This has lead to advertisers becoming more confident in investing their ad budgets in free newspapers. 

While paid newspapers still lead in terms of market share, certain industries, particularly cosmetics and skincare, have chosen the free newspaper route. In 2005, advertisers in this category only invested eight per cent of their ad budgets in the giveaways, but this figure has risen dramatically to 60 per cent in 2011.

The US$401 million figure for total ad-spending in Hong Kong, represents a 16 per cent year-on-year increase from July 2010, and a three per cent jump from the previous month. 

In terms of advertising revenue, all forms of media recorded an increase year-on-year, with the most significant increase going to the outdoor medium (70 per cent), while the media share of outdoor also rose from its average share of 11.3 percent to 13.6 per cent in the first half of 2011.