Asia rebounds, with ASEAN 
emerging as its shining star.

We updated our global forecasts for measured media spending in a report we call 'This Year, Next Year' this summer.

After its first year of decline recorded in 2009, Asia Pacific bounced back with a healthy growth of 9.3% in 2010, while 2011 will end with over 6% of growth YOY. Both North Asia and ASEAN will have media spends growing in double digit figures in 2011.

The phenomenal impact of the Japan Tsunami not only eroded Japan’s media growth significantly, but also created a dent in the global advertising, given Japan accounts for over 10% of the world’s ad investment. This caused us to revise earlier forecasts for 2011 full year for both Japan and the world.

Despite such a massive jolt, Asia Pacific ended notching the position of the largest contributing region to the global spends, surpassing North Americas in 2010 and will retain that position in 2011. North Asia was of course the biggest contribution to the Asia Pacific total.

A gleaming performance from the ASEAN cluster with a 22% overall media growth in 2010 will sustain through 2011 and 2012. This made ASEAN the best performing region in the entire world recording amazing growth! For Television spends ASEAN emerged with the most significant growth in 2010 and is expected to keep this streak continued till 2012, overshadowing all other regions. This evidence only points out the lucrative region all the TV networks would be eyeing over the coming years.

The digital media grew exponentially again in the Asia Pacific region, with indications that North Asia’s TV share of media eaten into by digital’s growth. The same is not the case with ASEAN, where TV held its own despite digital’s phenomenal growth.

In APAC, TV will hold its steady share of media right through till 2012, at the cost of declining shares of outdoor, magazines and newspapers. Digital will edge its way up especially in the area of search, social and mobile.

An analysis done with Nominal GDP and Media growth in markets showed very interesting indications that media growth outstripped NGDP in 8 of the APAC markets. Noticeable amongst them were the ASEAN markets except Singapore. The key contributor to this is the inflation faced on FTA costs in these markets – as high as double digit figures. Primarily caused by demand for TV (FTA primarily) inflation was a huge market force faced by advertisers. This poses an opportunity for cable & satellite TV to present itself as an alternative platform for FTA. TV networks need to start realizing their content potential and start to become more platform agnostic in engaging with the audience. Think online video rather than just TV network. To further capitalize this, it would be very timely to up the measurability and accountability quotient of cable TV, whilst FTA is facing advertiser frustration.

Year 2010: Nominal GDP vs Media Growth%	Year 2011: Nominal GDP vs Media Growth%