Digital advertising budgets in Central and Eastern Europe increased by 104% in the in the years 2014-2018.
As a result, according to the findings of the CANnual Report revealed at weCAN’s conference in Bucharest today (November 7), online advertising reached a net €5.7 billion in the region last year, exceeded ad spend in TV.
Thanks to economic prosperity and digital development, total net ad spend reached €13.8 billion in 2018, meaning that advertisers spent €3 billion more in the region than five years ago. TV stayed strong and digital spending saw an explosive growth, while outdoor became the third most popular type of advertising space after TV and online due to the free fall of print.
Advertisers in the Visegrad countries were the quickest to readjust their ad spendings in the digital age. The Czech Republic was the first market where online spending exceeded that of TV, followed by Hungary in 2015 and Poland in 2018, while Slovakia is expected to jump on the bandwagon in the near future.
Beside them, three more countries have reached this milestone since 2014: Lithuania in 2016, and Ukraine and Russia in 2018. The latter have become a real digital superpower, contributing almost half of the region’s entire online ad spending.
However, in line with the trends of media consumption, advertisers still spend significant amounts on TV commercials – in 2018, a net total of €5.5 billion, 14% more than five years earlier. Since 2014, the big screen has remained more popular in the South, the first places of the TV-ranking being firmly taken by Romania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia.
The report sums up the results of 15 CEE advertising markets from the 2014-2018 period and includes trend forecasts for the next five years.
WeCA is the network of independent advertising agencies of Central and Eastern Europe.
