For a few years now, Zenith’s adspends predictions have indicated a decline graph for the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. This year, the forecast had some good news in the form of the growth in digital advertising spends and its increasing contribution to the overall spends in the region. The numbers signal marketer’s transitioning from legacy to newer forms of media, bridging the gap between adspends and consumer behavior.
In a conversation with Arabian Marketer, Jonathan Barnard, Head of Forecasting, Director of Global Intelligence, Zenith puts some of the numbers in perspective and points the changes in the region that are leading to an uplift in the advertising expenditure as per the agency.
The report mentions an 18.6% drop in adspends in MENA this year. This is anearly double the prediction made in April – what has led to this drop?
We cut our predictions for 2017 MENA adspend quite heavily in the middle of the year. We had hoped that the rate of decline would slow this year, but that didn’t happen. We do expect the decline to moderate over the next few years as the economic situation improves, however. We are forecasting 0.4 percent growth for MENA in 2020 – we think that will be the start of a gradual recovery.
The low decline in consumer sentiments explained the drop we’ve seen in the recent past. But we can see that several consumer confident surveys are trending up. This is one of the reasons we expect the decline in MENA adspend to moderate over the next few years.
Digital seems to the rising story in MENA – what is contributing to this?
This is due to the rapid rise in the amount of time people are spending online, particularly using their smartphones and marketers shifting spends to reflect that.
Among some of the global trends, it is evident that not only are two platforms getting a lion’s share of the advertising pie but only two markets are contributing nearly half the global ad spends. How are you viewing these trends?
The global market is heavily reliant on two countries, but I think it would be better for the market as a whole to see broader-based growth coming from more countries. In particular we could do with stronger growth from the eurozone.
What is your advice to media owners and marketers in MENA at a time when the region continues to be challenged with decline in growth?
Brands that are prepared to invest in growth will be able to take advantage of cheap media and an unsaturated market – it now costs a lot less to increase your share of voice.
