Hong Kong digital ad spending to top traditional media for first time in 2017, says survey

Spending on digital advertising in Hong Kong is projected to surpass expenditure on traditional media campaigns for the first time in 2017, according to a new industry survey.

“We see a breakthrough year, as advertisers are now more confident about investing in online and mobile marketing,” Raymond Ho Wai-ming, the chairman of the Hong Kong Advertisers Association, told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.

This much-anticipated shift in spending also shows that advertisers “are ready to move forward under the new normal of an uncertain local economy”, Ho said.

The latest annual survey conducted by the association and market-measurement company Nielsen found that the city’s 100 major marketers plan to spend, on average, about 51 per cent of their budget on digital advertising and 49 per cent on traditional media campaigns.

In contrast, last year’s survey showed 58 per cent of their advertising budget was expected to be consumed by traditional, or offline, campaigns and 21 per cent each by mobile and online marketing programmes.

Weighed down by the weak local economy, total advertising spending in Hong Kong fell 9 per cent last year to HK$41.6 billion from HK$45.8 billion in 2015, according to updated estimates by media-monitoring firm admanGo.