Highlights in March 2024
In March, the “traditional” advertising market recorded gross advertising pressure of CHF 350.4 million, an increase of 33.9 percent on the figures for February. Compared to the previous year, however, it recorded a slight decline of 1.2 percent.
The advertising market was in its usual strong shape in March, not least thanks to Easter sales.
A look at the first quarter of 2024 also shows positive trends in the traditional advertising market, which closed at CHF 885.5 million gross – a rise of 2.8 percent.
Cinema rose by 31 percent compared to the previous year, while print recorded a fall of 11 percent. The TV market remained largely stable, with growth of 1 percent. Radio (+4%) and out-of-home advertising (+10%) also saw increases compared to the previous year.
Please note that the data for Livesystems is currently only available for 2024. The increase in out-of-home advertising without Livesystems was +1.1 percent, while the traditional advertising market without Livesystems fell by 2.9 percent.
In March, search engine advertising again took the lead in online advertising, with a share of 64.6 percent. Compared to last year, however, this represents a decline of 28 percent, which can be explained by a core update from Google in March. Display ads took the second largest share at 27.3 percent, followed by YouTube at 8.3 percent.
From 2024, we will be reporting the traditional advertising market and digital channels (search, YouTube, display) separately to ensure better comparability to the previous year. Volatility in recording in the online sector, due to external influences such as adjustments made by Google, can lead to larger fluctuations throughout the year. In the search sector in particular there were numerous adjustments and changes made by Google in the last half of the year, which made comparing gross advertising spending with the previous year difficult.
Advertising pressure in the traditional market
Advertising pressure development in the traditional market in March 2024 in CHF million gross.
Cleaning and energy saw significant increases
The traditional advertising market recorded a decline of 1.2 percent in March, though sectors such as cleaning (+200.3%), energy (+141.6%), tobacco products (+52.5%), leisure, gastronomy, tourism (+31.7%) and pharmaceuticals & health (+22.1%) saw significant increases compared to the previous year.
11 sectors showed a decline
The decline of 1.2 percent is due to the reduction in advertising pressure in 11 sectors, including public transport (-30.9%), digital & household (-28.0%), events (-15.8%) and finance (-15.5%).
Sector ranking in the traditional market
Top of the month
The top advertisers and most advertised products and services (excluding range, image and other advertising) in March.
Media Mix Traditional
Media mix for March 2024.
Advertising pressure in the digital market
Advertising pressure development in the digital market in March 2024 in CHF million gross.
Sector ranking: traditional vs. digital channels in comparison
The top 3 sectors in the traditional advertising market were food, retail and leisure, gastronomy and tourism. When it came to online channels, finance was in the top three rather than food, which only managed eleventh place in the digital advertising market.
Construction, industry, furnishings and initiatives & campaigns took fourth and fifth place on the traditional channels, while these sectors took fifth and fourteenth place in the digital ranking. Pharmaceuticals & health was in the middle of the field both in the traditional advertising market (eighth place) and in the digital advertising market (tenth place).
The digital & household sector was heavily skewed towards digital channels, coming in seventh place in the digital advertising market and only fifteenth in the traditional advertising market. Cleaning ranked last among digital channels and seventeenth among traditional channels. The tobacco products and energy sectors performed more weakly in both the traditional and digital advertising markets.
Industry ranking in the digital market
Top products
The most advertised products in the Search, Display and YouTube segments in March.
In search, the products “ab-in-den-urlaub.ch” and “booking.com” from the leisure, gastronomy and tourism sector took the first two places. On YouTube the front-runners were “TikTok Mobile App” and “Nespresso coffee pods”, while in Display “google.ch” and “IQOS tobacco heating system” came top.
“Temu.com” took fourth place for display and fifth for search. Other products that were present in the top ten across several digital channels included “Kinder Bueno” and “Kinder Schoko Bons”. “Kinder Bueno” managed seventh place on the Display and YouTube channels, while “Kinder Schoko Bons” took eighth place on Display and ninth on YouTube.
Media Mix Digital
Media mix for the month of March.
Contact: mediafocus@mediafocus.ch, Tel.: +41 43 322 27 50
Annual review 2023 Advertising Market Trend February 2024