Brazil's economic slowdown hits blurbs
Study: Ads rise but can't match inflation
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Intermeios study, the leading reference tool for the ad market, ad spend rose to 9.63 billion reais. However, the increase failed to keep pace with inflation, measured at an annual rate of 12.5% last year.
In U.S. dollar terms, ad investment fell 16.5% to $3.31 billion in 2002, due to the sharp depreciation of the currency against the dollar over the year.
Analysts attributed the poor results to the country's economic slowdown. In 2003, they expect the total ad investment to increase 8% to 11%, which will most likely be below the annual inflation rate.
Broadcast television, which attracts the lion's share of investment, saw its share edge up from 57.3% to 58.7%, raking in 5.65 billion reais thanks to the boost from the soccer World Cup, which Brazil won.
The World Cup also gave local pay TV operators a lift. They drew ad investments of 183 million reais in 2002, up 28.43% from the previous year. However, their share of the ad pie remains quite low at 1.9%. Only 3.4 million of Brazil's 40 million TV homes have pay TV.
