Last January, in the middle of the electoral campaign, the Italian advertising market collapsed by 15,3%. The contraction was less severe than that recorded the previous month (in December the drop was 18%). In any case, the first month of 2013 closed with a loss of 82 million euros compared to the same period in 2012. The data was released today by the research company Nielsen.
However, the situation is far from homogeneous and the gap between old and new means of communication proves to be more than marked. THE newspapers confirm the negative trend with -25% (-21 million), while i periodicals they mark a -25,1% (-7,5 million). There Tv it lost a total of 16,1% (-52 million), with negative trends for all operators. Only the digital terrestrial platform records growth. There radio, if compared with the -11,4% in December, seems to hold (-2,2%), but it is still too early to tell if it is a real turning point.
The real difference is registered in the market of Internet, which after the last two negative months (November -7,3%, December -10,5%) starts to grow again, posting a +9,3% that has not been seen since last July (+8,4% ). This is a significant increase, also because in January 2012 an increase of 23% was recorded.
In the wake of the electoral campaign, whose rules penalize the other means of communication, the billboards achieved spectacular growth of 29,6%, while some important automotive and pharmaceutical campaigns gave new life to the cinema medium (+28,6%).
As for the various sectors to which advertisers belong, automobiles and food have reduced their investments by 13,3% and 13,9% respectively (-10 million euro each); pharmaceuticals recorded a slowdown of 18,5%, -20% instead for telecommunications. Tourism is still growing (+17,3%) and the sector of entities and institutions, which scores a +56,4% thanks to the electoral campaign.
Despite everything, according to Nielsen the recovery is still far away. It will certainly not arrive in the first quarter, while for the second we will have to wait for developments in the socio-political situation. Only in the last part of the year could there be an improvement, both for a purely mathematical reason (technical rebound), given that the last part of 2012 had gone particularly badly, and for the lessening of the uncertainties about the immediate future.
