China Online-Ad Market Shows Room for Growth
A new snapshot of online-advertising spending in China shows considerable growth potential in marketing to the world's second-largest population of Internet users.
From May 1 through July 31, advertisers spent $190 million on online ads in mainland China, nearly as much as on magazines, online-research company Nielsen/NetRatings reported. That still represents only about 3% of the total spending on advertising in China, while online-ad spending is about 6% of the total in the U.S.
"There is big space to grow," said Hans Yu, the executive director of Nielsen/NetRatings in China.
The data mark the China debut of the AdRelevance system that Nielsen uses elsewhere. It uses a computer to monitor ads placed across 200 sites throughout the day. Competitor CTR Media Intelligence monitors ads on 70 Chinese sites using a system from its partner TNS Media Intelligence.
Nielsen's figures, which don't discount for ads some sites give repeat customers free, outpace previous estimates for the market. A Chinese firm, iResearch, earlier this year estimated that online advertising, including email, pictures, logos and classified ads on Web sites, generated $258 million in the first six months of the year and will likely reach $575 million by the end of the year.
Advertisers are spending more online because already 123 million Chinese -- at last count -- are using the Internet and are increasingly turning to the Web to gather and share information, play games and explore hobbies in ways that haven't been seen in more developed markets. Only the U.S. has more Internet users.
"In China, when the Internet works, it really works. The propensity among young people to respond to some online marketing mechanisms can be overwhelming," said Steven Chang, chief executive of Publicis Groupe SA media-buying agency Optimedia.
China's online-ad market has developed relatively slowly, however, because the country's biggest Web portals have until recently put more emphasis on selling wireless services and online games than on ads. So it has been playing catch-up. In 2005, online advertising generated about $390 million in revenue for Chinese Web sites, eight times the total in 2001, according to iResearch.
For advertisers, the challenge now is figuring out how to spend their money well. "Everybody wants to put much more money in the Internet, but it is hard to hire enough people that understand it deeply." said Quinn Taw, the chief China strategy officer for GroupM, which manages WPP Group PLC's media agencies.
The single largest online advertiser from May through July was cellphone-service provider China Mobile, which put out 3.1 billion so-called ad impressions during the three-month period, according to Nielsen.
Nielsen found that the biggest online-advertising spenders were in the automotive, computer, and electronics and consumer-goods industries. At the bottom of the list were banks and other financial-services companies, which dominate online spending in most other markets but account for 3% in China.
中国网络广告市场方兴未艾
对中国网络广告支出的最新研究显示，这个全球互联网用户数仅次于美国的国家在网络广告方面仍存在巨大的增长空间。
网络研究公司尼尔森网络测评(Nielsen/NetRatings)公布，从5月1日到7月31日，广告客户共在中国大陆投入了1.90亿美元的网络广告，几乎同杂志广告的金额相同。但这仍只占中国广告总支出的3%，而美国的网络广告支出占全国总支出的6%左右。
尼尔森网络测评中国区董事总经理庾良建(Hans Yu)说，增长的空间依然很大。
这些数据是尼尔森(Nielsen)首次在中国使用AdRelevance系统统计出的。这套系统用电脑全天监测刊登在200个网站上的广告。竞争对手CTR Media Intelligence用来自合作伙伴TNS Media Intelligence的系统监测70个中国网站的广告。
尼尔森网络测评的数据超过了此前对这一市场的预期，不过它没有剔除部分网站给回头客免费刊登的广告。中国企业艾瑞市场咨询有限公司(iResearch)今年早些时候估计，今年前6个月，包括电子邮件、图片、图标和网站分类广告在内的网络广告总额为2.58亿美元，全年有望达到5.75亿美元。
广告客户增加网络广告支出的原因在于，根据最新统计，中国的互联网用户已经达到1.23亿，他们越来越多地通过网络搜集和分享信息、玩游戏和消遣。
Publicis Groupe SA旗下媒体广告机构突破传播(Optimedia)的首席执行长郑香霖(Steven Chang)说，在中国，互联网的作用不容忽视。年轻人对部分网络营销手段的反应很热烈。
不过，由于中国最大的几个门户网站直到不久前还更加重视无线服务和网上游戏，网络广告市场的发展比较缓慢。不过现在这项业务正在迎头赶上。艾瑞市场咨询的数据显示，2005年中国网站的网络广告收入约为3.90亿美元，是2001年的8倍。
对广告客户而言，目前的挑战是如何能让他们的支出获得更好的效果。WPP Group PLC旗下专业媒介公司传立媒体(GroupM)的首席中国策略长杜生利(Quinn Taw)说，所有人都希望将更多资金投到互联网上，但难以招聘到对此有深入了解的人才。
尼尔森称，5至7月期间，最大的单一网络广告客户是手机服务提供商中国移动(China Mobile)，在这3个月中获得的广告印象为31亿次。
尼尔森还发现，最大的网络广告客户来自于汽车、电脑、电子产品和消费产品领域。银行和其它金融服务公司的排名较低，这两个行业在大多数其它市场都居于主导地位，但在中国仅占3%。
Geoffrey A. Fowler
