31-03-2014

Bulgarian Advertising Market Struggles to Remain Stable

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    SOFIA: The Bulgarian Association of Communication Agencies reported that in 2013 the country’s advertising market amounted to 303 m BGN, a decrease of 0.62%, and has a possibility of 2% growth in 2014.

    TV advertising still retains the largest share at 185 m BGN, an increase of 2.5%. Outdoor advertising is the other segment showing growth, up 2.3% to 38 m BGN.

    With 40 m BGN in revenues press advertising registered a decrease of 5%, while radio advertising had a decrease of 5% to 15 m BGN revenues.

    According to economy.bg quoting the Chair of the Bulgarian Association of Communication Agencies Krassimir Gergov in 2013 IT advertising revenues amounted to 20 m BGN, a decrease of 19.6% and was mostly visible in Google and Facebook, a total of 22-23m of BNG.

    In the beginning of 2014 total advertising revenues registered a 10% decrease.The reason for that “is in the shrinking advertising budgets of major advertisers, the delayed start of many advertising campaigns, poor data on consumption and the economy in the country,” stated Ivo Tsekov from the Piero 97 advertising agency. He added that the future development of the advertising market will depend on the attitude towards mobile phones and tablets. “An increasing number of advertisers are considering mobile devices as a separate niche from the Internet,” Tsekov said.

    In 2013 the market strongly depended on several big advertising campaigns, financed by the state: the costly TV digitalisation and the parliamentary elections.