CANual Report 2019

Media People which is a member of weCAN, a network of independent advertising agencies in Central and Eastern Europe, has published with its partners, the fifth annual CANnual Report. The launch took place at the weCAN conference in Bucharest on November 7. 

The weCAN report summarizes the performance of the advertising market in 15 Central and Eastern European countries in the period 2014-2018, in addition to providing trend forecasts for the next five years. In addition to data on media consumer habits and advertising spending in the region, the publication also includes articles by weCAN experts and other industry leaders, such as Agnieszka Kosik, head of Facebook Poland, Illés Vadász, Head of Industry for Google Hungary, Mojca Briščik, President of the Golden Drum Festival, and Dr. Ákos Kozák, Director of the Market Research Institute of GfK Hungária.   

Two landmark events in just five years 

The report indicates that thanks to economic prosperity and digital development, the total value of advertising spending in the region reached €13.8 billion in 2018, more than €3 billion more than five years earlier. 

The number of people in the region who regularly use the internet has increased by 10% since 2014, moreover, advertisers in most countries have quickly adapted to the changing habits of media consumers. The rapid growth in online content consumption has entailed a sharp 104% increase in digital advertising budgets. As a result, online advertising spending in Central and Eastern Europe totaled €5.7 billion last year, exceeding the amount spent on television advertising. 

However, the overtaking of TV budgets by online spending was only one of several breakthroughs in the CEE advertising market in recent years. While print advertising is the only media type to record a steady decline in expenditures (-28%), the outdoor advertising market has been moderately strengthening (+10%). Online media have so much taken over the audience previously enjoyed by print advertising that outdoor advertising has become the third most popular type of advertising space after television and the Internet, overtaking print.

Advertising market in Central and Eastern European countries from 2014 to 2018

Advertisers in the Visegrad countries were the fastest to adapt their ad spending to the new digital age. The Czech Republic was the first market where online ad spending exceeded TV ad spending; this was followed by Hungary in 2015 and finally Poland in 2018. Slovakia may soon join the ranks of these countries as well. In addition to these markets, three more have reached this stage since 2014: Lithuania (2016) and Ukraine and Russia (2018). The latter country has become a true digital superpower, accounting for almost half of all online ad spending in the region.

WeCAN ranking position

Five years ago, the weCAN network created the index to offer advertisers detailed information on the state of advertising markets in the region. The value in the weCAN ranking shows the percentage of advertising spending per capita within a country's nominal GDP, showing whether the advertising market as an economic sector is stronger or weaker than a country's overall economic performance suggests. 

Since 2014, the value of the weCAN ranking has increased for six countries: Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Russia and Lithuania. This means that in these countries the advertising market developed more dynamically than the rest of the economy. As you can see, these are the same countries where online ad spending has overtaken TV, proving that the advertising industry, as in Western markets, is growing more as the digital segment takes the lead from traditional media.

Since the inception of the Canual Report, we have been writing about the CEE market, which is distinctly different from other regions in Europe but is also very heterogeneous within the 16 countries that make it  form. First of all, it manifests itself in the consumption of individual  media as well as the dynamics of the technological changes being introduced. The common denominator is global cultural and political changes, formatted in the digital world with greater precision than ever before with the help of data. The terrain of these games therefore overlaps with that of marketers' operations. Today  The industry is being challenged by previously unknown phenomena and new opportunities and dangers. Awareness, knowledge, flowing from our compendium is the starting point for the work of marketing departments that face both local and regional activities for brands - Comments the report's co-author, Weronika Szwarc-Bronikowska, vice president of media house Media People.

The entire report can be downloaded here:  https://wecan.net/cannual-report/