A recent conference held by the Hungarian Advertising Association seems to have been the occasion for a major round of doom-mongering and bellyaching by those in the domestic ad business. And for good reason: the numbers are just awful. While according to fn.hu, association chief Balint Nagy was hesitant about giving a precise forecast for the coming year, others are not so shy.
A study by national media watchdog ORTT, for example, projected a drop of 15% to 30% for this year, and its authors think the industry’s pain may last until 2014. Meanwhile, Szonda Ipsos CEO János Gulyás was quoted as saying he thinks the Hungarian ad media market will never again be what it was before the crisis. Gulyás said that the business was always plagued by major structural problems, but until now these were papered-over.
Continuing with the gloom, Sanoma Budapest CEO György Szabó said that Hungary’s print media has not even faced its real test. Instead, he called 2009 a “year of illusions” that will be followed by a year that will see numerous newspapers closing down.
Not everyone was so pessimistic. As you might expect, the online contingent was more upbeat, with Kirowski President Péter Novák saying he thought digital’s share of the ad pie could grow to 20% by 2012 from this year’s 14%, and reach 25% by 2013.
And there is another, larger reason for optimism. If the old maxim holds that 50% of all ad spend is wasted, this mean that, by the time the Hungarian ad industry’s pain is over, it might be halfway to the point that the customers it serves are getting decent value for their money.