CANnual Report 2019

Media People and its partners in weCAN, the network of independent advertising agencies in Central and Eastern Europe, have published the fifth CANnual Report. It was launched at the weCAN conference in Bucharest on 7 November. 

The report reviews advertising markets in 15 CEE countries between 2014 and 2018 and looks ahead to the next five years. Alongside data on media consumption and advertising expenditure, it features contributions from weCAN experts and industry leaders, including Agnieszka Kosik, Head of Facebook Poland; Illés Vadász, Industry Manager at Google Hungary; Mojca Briščik, President of the Golden Drum Festival; and Dr Ákos Kozák, Managing Director of GfK Hungária.   

Two major shifts in just five years 

Economic growth and digital development helped total advertising expenditure in the region reach €13.8 billion in 2018 — more than €3 billion above the level five years earlier. 

The number of regular internet users in the region has grown by 10% since 2014, and advertisers in most countries have adapted quickly to changing media habits. As online content consumption increased, digital advertising budgets grew by 104%. Online expenditure reached €5.7 billion in 2018, overtaking television. 

Online advertising overtaking television was only one of the period’s major changes. Print was the only medium to record a sustained decline in expenditure, falling by 28%, while outdoor advertising grew by 10%. As audiences moved from print to digital channels, outdoor became the region’s third-largest advertising medium, behind television and online.

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

Advertisers in the Visegrád countries were among the quickest to adapt. Online advertising first overtook television in the Czech Republic, followed by Hungary in 2015 and Poland in 2018, with Slovakia potentially next. Lithuania reached the same milestone in 2016, followed by Ukraine and Russia in 2018. Russia accounted for almost half of all online advertising expenditure in the region.

The weCAN index

weCAN introduced its index five years ago to help advertisers assess the region’s markets. By relating advertising expenditure per capita to nominal GDP per capita, the index indicates whether a country’s advertising sector is stronger or weaker than its overall economic performance would suggest. 

Since 2014, the weCAN index has risen in seven countries: the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Russia and Lithuania. In these markets, advertising grew faster than the wider economy. Most were also markets where online expenditure had overtaken television, highlighting the contribution digital advertising can make to industry growth.

“Since the first CANnual Report, we have described CEE as a region that differs from the rest of Europe and is itself highly diverse across its 16 countries.  This is particularly evident in media consumption  and the pace of technological change. What connects these markets is the influence of global cultural and political change, increasingly shaped by data in the digital world. These shifts take place in the same space in which marketers operate. Today,  the industry faces unfamiliar challenges, opportunities and risks. The knowledge collected in our report provides a starting point for marketing teams working on both local and regional brand campaigns,” says report co-author Weronika Szwarc-Bronikowska, Vice-President of Media People.

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