Market Report—Advertising Spend for the Watch & Jewellery Trade in the Middle East for 2007

10-Jun-2008

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Total advertising spend for the Watch & Jewellery trade during 2007 increases by 16.64 % (over 2006) for the GCC and 44.02 % (over 2006) for the remainder of the Middle East

Region continues to enjoy prolonged and sustained retail growth driven by cascading oil revenues and persistent demand for luxury premium goods, boosting advertising expenditure

Renewed optimism for healthy 2008 outlook for industry advertising triggered by fierce competition and continued entry of new brands

Advertising sustained by investment influx

Propelled by strong and sustained oil & gas revenues at their current high levels, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), expanding well-heeled expatriate base and the continued influx of professionals from across the globe, booming real estate mega projects, investor-friendly government policies, buoyant economies and liberal expenditures on massive infrastructural facilities, the year 2007 has been an excellent year for the Middle East Advertising Industry in general with a strong showing in the Watch & Jewellery Industry, particularly in the GCC countries.

Advertising Spend—Up, up all the way

In 2007, the total advertising spend (general, all categories) was up 26.19 % to USD $ 151.98 million from USD $ 120.43 million in 2006 up across the GCC, Levant (Lebanon & Jordan) and Egypt. The region shows no sign of slowing down and the advertising spend for the industry this year has been the highest ever. The big spenders continued to spend even more with bigger advertising budget allocations. The emergence of new brands has also stirred the competition within the advertising industry and resulted in a big-time boom in advertising spend across the board in all forms of media—print, radio, television and outdoor.

Retail infrastructure fuelling growth

The emergence of mega malls and other large retail centres is accelerating advertising spend in the region. Enormous shopping complexes will soon change the skyline and horizon of all the major Gulf and Middle Eastern cities and larger budgets will have to be made available to keep up with the boom. The opening of exclusive stand-alone brand boutiques across region is also providing an impetus to the retail industry and translating into increasing advertising spends.

Saudi Arabia, UAE retain top two positions

Traditional leaders Saudi Arabia and UAE continued to maintain their top positions. For the first time however, Saudi Arabia rallied from second place in 2006 to topple the UAE from its top perch to become the single biggest advertising spender in 2007. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia’s 2007 watch & jewellery advertising expenditure at USD $ 31.557 million represented a 22.41 % growth over the corresponding 2006 figure of USD $ 25.779 million. On the other hand, the UAE’s advertising spend of USD $ 30.587 million in 2007 implied a drop of 3.78 % over the corresponding 2006 figures of USD $ 31.743 million.

GCC-single biggest advertising bloc

The six oil-rich GCC countries constituted the single biggest regional bloc for advertising spend with a cumulative annual 2007 budget of USD $ 91.458 million or 60 % of the total Middle East expenditure. Likewise, the GCC is also the single largest retail bloc.

Kuwait, Qatar come to the top table

Kuwait and Qatar also demonstrated hefty percentage increases in advertising spend in 2007 over 2006 at 42.61 % and 48.88 % respectively. Kuwait’s 2007 advertising budget was USD $ 13.035 million followed closely by Qatar at USD $ 12.738 million. In recent times, Qatar has shown marked dynamism in advertising expenditures and retail sales boosted by the events such as the annual Doha Jewellery & Watches Exhibition

Advertising spend—close up; GCC & remainder of the Middle East

In this series, MPParabia has reviewed emerging figures to closely examine the media expenditure for specific brands as well as for principals / franchisees / retailers in the watches, jewellery and accessories both collectively and singularly for the Middle East region.

*As with our last presentation, for the purpose of our study the region has been classified into two broad entities—The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) comprising the Gulf Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates and secondly the Levant which includes Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The media has also been classified into Pan Arab Media which includes cross border TV stations such as MBC, LBC Sat, Future International (Al Mushtaqbal), Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya to name a few; trans-national print media (publications with multi-country circulations), regional radio stations and separately, Pan Arasian Media which consists of a pre-determined list of ethnic publications that cater for Asian expatriates in the Middle East.

Pan Arab Media is a big beneficiary of advertising revenue; Arasian* media static

The Pan Arab media, a mix of print media, television and radio stations across the Middle East, was the single biggest recipient of advertising at USD $ 43.144 million in 2007, where revenues increased by a giant 48.03 % over 2006 intake. On the other hand, revenues were static for the Arasian* media, representing a pre-determined list of ethnic and vernacular publications, television, outdoor and cinema serving the mainly South Asian community across the Middle East, where growth was only 1.5 %.

Watches score over jewellery in advertising revenue intake

As a generic product, watches attracted greater advertising revenue than jewellery. In the GCC in H2-2007 for example, watches accounted for a super 81 % of the advertising budget spend whilst jewellery and accessories trailed behind at 18% and 1 % respectively. It was a similar pattern for the remainder of the Middle East as well where watches took 64 % of the advertising budget with jewellery and accessories claimed 35 % and 1 % of the budget respectively.

Over 250 top, premium, international watch & jewellery brands were surveyed in this extensive report

Table I: GCC country wise media spending for 2007 broken down into individual H1-2007 and H2-2007 individual expenditures.

Media: Magazines / Newspapers / Television / Outdoor / Radio & Cinema

(All figures in USD $ 000s)

Category: Watches / Jewellery / Accessories

Sub-Region: GCC (Key: KSA—Saudi Arabia; UAE—United Arab Emirates; BAH—Bahrain; KWT—Kuwait; QTR—Qatar & OMN—Oman)

Country	H2-07	H1-07	TS*2007	% Increase H2 over H1	TS* 2006	% Increase 07 over 06
KSA	16662	14895	31557	+11.86 %	25779	+22.41 %
UAE	16971	13616	30587	+24.64 %	31743	-3.78 %
BAH	1596	1044	2640	+52.87 %	2298	+14.88 %
KWT	6965	6070	13035	+14.74 %	9140	+42.61 %
QTR	6304	6434	12738	-2.02 %	8556	+48.88 %
OMN	497	405	902	+23.01 %	892	+1.00 %
TOTAL	48995	42464	91459	+15.38 %	78408	+16.64 %