Online advertising expected to become P1-billion industry next year

MANILA, Philippines - Online advertising will be a P1-billion industry next year because it is a more cost efficient way of promoting products and services, research group Nielsen said.

In a press conference yesterday, Executive Director Jay G. Bautista said that they are projecting high revenues for Internet advertising because the Internet is recession-proof.

 “It can even be more than P1 billion because we haven’t factored in the elections next year,” Bautista told reporters.

He explained that people are able to access the Internet for free given that there are a lot of establishments who offer free access to the web. Or else, he said the cost to connecting to the net is minimal because of the many Internet cafes.

Bautista said before this year, there is no data for Internet adspace sales in the Philippines. For the region, Internet advertisement generated $15 million in revenues.

TV, radio and print ads have a combined revenue of P160 billion last year. However, advertising for the trimedia is expected to drop this year given the financial crisis.

According to Bautista, a year after the Asian Financial crisis hit, ad revenues went down by 10 percent. “We are expecting a drop in the advertisements in the trimedia even though people perceive TV and radio as recession proof.”

The two, and the Internet, are said to be insulated from the recession because the people do not need to pay extra to enjoy these.

The advantage of advertising in the Internet, Bautista said, is that it is more cost efficient than the TV. He said a 30-second ad space in television costs P300,000 while using the internet is cheaper.

Likewise, Internet usage is expected to increase by 10 percent this year because of availability.

In a survey conducted by Yahoo and Nielsen, it showed that 28 percent of Filipinos in National Urban Philippines have accessed the Internet in the past month while five percent have access to the Internet everyday.

The Yahoo!-Nielsen Net Index Study also showed that most of the users are likely to be below 29 years old, single and are better educated.

It categorized Filipino Internet users to be the opinion leaders and early adopters compared to traditional media consumers. They are likely to be individualistic, trend conscious, willing to pay for quality products and are tech-entusiasts.