Spanish adspend set for decline

MADRID: Advertisers in Spain are continuing to cut marketing budgets due to the tough economic environment, figures released by media group Prisa have suggested.

Spain's largest media owner, whose properties include the national newspaper El País, radio stations including Cadena SER and four TV channels, said that its revenues from advertising were down 15.9% in the third quarter of 2012, and had suffered a 15.7% fall over the first nine months of this year. This includes revenues from Prisa's businesses in Spain and Portugal.

Within the headline adspend decline, radio fell by 15.7% over the nine month period, while press was down 16.3%. This was partly offset by digital advertising – including digital radio and websites like ElPais.com – which rose 14.1% year on year during January–September 2012.

Prisa's latest figures chime with latest data from Warc's Consensus Ad Forecast, which forecast a fall in all-media adspend of -7.8% in Spain for 2012.

Cuts to adspend reflect conditions in the broader Spanish economy. Official figures released this week by the Spanish National Statistics Institute suggested that the nation's economy remained in recession in the third quarter of 2012, with GDP down 0.3% on the previous quarter and down 1.6% compared with the same period in 2011.

Meanwhile, separate figures for Portugal released by Omnicom Media Group have suggested that the nation's all-media adspend total will see a year-on-year drop of 14.8% in 2012.

Data sourced from 4-Traders/Bloomberg/Reuters; additional content by Warc staff, 31 October 2012

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