“Advertising spending by our clients has been picking up, with at least 25 per cent year-on-year growth for this month. This is a sign of recovery for the rest of this year,” said Wannee Rattanaphon, chairwoman of IPG Mediabrands, the advertising-media arm of the Interpublic Group (IPG).

Advertising expenditure during the first half is expected to post a decline after the total figure during the first five months reported by Nielsen Thailand showed an 8.5-per-cent decrease to Bt46.15 billion from Bt50.44 billion in the same period last year.

Manee Eabe, managing director of Magna Global of IPG Mediabrands, said the third quarter was typically the industry’s peak season, as brands and corporates would inject their marketing budgets via media outlets to stimulate customers’ demand, boosting their sales by year-end.

“Local businesses are also expected to benefit from the government’s infrastructure spending and Pracha Rath grass-roots economic policy,” Manee explained.

Apart from that, marketing campaigns related to global sports events such as the 15th Uefa European Championship, the FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix, and the Summer Olympics were supporting factors for the advertising industry for the remaining months of the year.

Surin Krittayaphongphun, acting president of Bangkok Entertainment Company, the operator of Channel 3, said his company was an official broadcaster of the Euro 2016 soccer tournament, which runs from June 10 to July 10. So far, the sponsorship packages have been almost fully booked by clients. The packages for the Volleyball World Grand Prix Final have followed suit.

Although sporting events are key factors in attracting advertising expenditure from local brands and companies to television channels, Surin said many brands were experimenting with new marketing-communication strategies by allocating part of their advertising budgets to online media.

In line with this trend, television advertising, even on digital channels, has faced a drop. According to Nielsen’s report for the January-to-May period, ad spending on analog TV stations dropped by 11.24 per cent to Bt21.68 billion from Bt24.42 billion in the same period last year, while spending on digital TV ads fell by almost 10 per cent to Bt7.82 billion from Bt8.67 billion.

Suparanan Tanviruch, chief executive officer of Master Ad, a provider of out-of-home advertising media, said this was a result of the change in consumers’ behaviour driven by the emergence of digital media.

“To deal with the ongoing change, out-of-home also needs to adopt an integrated marketing-communication service for our clients,” she said.

Master Ad hopes to see its revenue grow by at least 15 per cent this year after investing about Bt500 million to add more billboards in the provinces both organically and through mergers and acquisitions of local companies. “Amid the economic slowdown, market consolidation is expected to be seen in the remaining months,” she said.