Russian advertising market keeps stepping up

While the advertising market throughout the world has fallen on hard times, Russian advertising costs keep rising. According to the Russian Association of Advertising Agencies, over the first six months of 2003, the volume of the Russian advertising market reached $1.2bn, and it is likely to go beyond $4bn by the end of the year.

In the reported period, mass media advertising costs surged 32 percent. The Internet advertising market has been the best performer with 75-percent growth, although its volume totaled only $8m dollars in the first half of 2003. Television commercials set the pace, its incomes exceeded $0.5bn showing 38-percent growth. Press is running up with gains of $330m to $340m but only 25-percent growth. Incomes from outdoor advertising are estimated at $240m to $250m, jumping by 32 percent.

Nevertheless, experts of the Russian Association of Advertising Agencies say that although rates of growth of the Russian advertising market are high, the boom is over, the Izvestia newspaper reported.