Meteor's '09 ad budget to fall despite awards razzmatazz
Shane Filan and Nicky Byrne (Westlife) winners of the Best Irish Pop Act at Meteor Ireland Music Awards 2009 in the RDS on Tuesday night
Thursday March 19 2009
THE glamour and glitz of Tuesday's Meteor Awards harkened back to the glory days when the sky was the limit for marketing budgets and telecos seemed locked in a wonderful battle to outspend each other.
But for all the razzmatazz of the awards, Meteor marketing boss Conor Carmody says falling ad prices mean their budgets could drop by as much as 20pc this year, something he expects to see more than replicated across the once-booming telecos ad market.
That fall comes against a 27pc spending jump in 2008, according to figures from IAPI Base, when the four mobile companies booked ads worth €63m.
Online spends have been particularly buoyant in recent years, jumping from €712,000 in 2006 to €2.7m last year according to analysis from OmnicomMediaGroup, while outdoor spends rose from €13.9m to €21.5m and print spends grew from €12.4m to €18.3m. "There's a lot of deflation in the market, and with that we think we'll see spends coming back to 2007 levels this year," says Carmody.
And it's not just the mobile companies that are reassessing -- landline giant BT says it is "reducing" its marketing budget in 2009, "partly driven by the economic climate".
Its new approach will see a greater focus on shorter campaigns and more globalised ad campaigns, a spokeswoman says.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Over at mobile network 3, Rachel Channing says marketing budgets are expected to "stay stable" in 2009 while sponsorship spends will increase thanks to 3's recent adoption of the Irish Open.
- Laura Noonan
