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Online Advertising Market Business Watch in Romania
IAA Young Proffessional hosted a round table this week – the speakers presented their thoughts after IAA 2010 World Congress in Moscow.
Maria Tudor (Managing Director, Zenith Media) also spoke about optimism in the local Internet market and about online growth for Romania in 2010 (a must read for Internet Sales Agencies and Internet Publishers).
Few people know the history of the Internet in Romania but yesterday I had the chance to notice the sudden death of local legend – I think it deserves a post.
1996 – The first Romanian newspaper published on the Internet marks the launch of online journalism in Romania. ZIUA was the first general newspaper to walk on the digital world in a time when “e-mail” was considered as hot as “twitter” 
2006 – Top 10 online player – During the years, the brand was challenged by many scandals and urban stories, ex-KGB spooks, secret documents and secret agents, legal and financial matters. The company was bought by local media mogul Sorin Ovidiu Vantu but was considered the “ugly duck” for Realitatea-Catavencu group and was never fully integrated in the group.
2008 – SATI: Affinity for old people – I remember a short episode in 2008 when I saw the first SATI demographics: Ziua.net had a strong affinity for old people and a heavy component of foreign audience: Ziua was also the first romanian newspaper with an online version for romanians living in and USA and Canada.
2009 – November – The Record – 2009 presidential elections in Romania also set a new traffic record for ZIUA: 1.488.159 unique visitors.
2009 – December: The announcement – Sorin Ovidiu Vantu announced his future plans in an interview: his investments will shift towards Internet and the print titles will be either sold or closed down. The news didn’t came as a surprise for people working at ZIUA at that time. The website still had 1.340.620 uv in December 2009.
2010 – January: The end of ZIUA -Â Facing critial financial issues, the newspaper was closed down. Ziua.ro displayed an empty homepage and Ziua.net was suspended. I tried to find out if the website was available for sale – at that time the website counted 1.046.633 unique visitors. I was not the only one interested in the faith of the website, I found out that Sorin Rosca Stanescu, the founder of the newspaper, was also interested in aquiring the domain but was politely declined.
2010 – February – 326.783 unique visitors – 1.000.000+ was a constant number for Ziua.ro in 2009: direct hits, heavy users and a very stable traffic. Last month the website lost this 1.000.000 people.
If you know how hard or how expensive it is to bring 1000 people to a website imagine how is like to lose 1 million visitors in a market like Romania. I understand the reasons for closing down the print edition but I have no idea what went wrong with the online edition nor how the strategists in the group missed the potential and the market share of the website… after all, it was the first online newspaper in Romania.
I had a twit  this morning about Simina’s article based on local media budgets in 2009 published in Wall-Street. According to Alfa Cont numbers,  Romanian top 20 advertisiers spent almost, 2005,3 mil EUR (rate card) in 2009 compared to 2174,2 mil EUR (rate card) in 2008.
The panic effect: similar bugdets, 90% discounts
The difference: 168,8 mil EUR (rate card), a very small percent if compared to the est. 2,1 bln EUR (rc). The panic effect we saw in 2009 weakened media vehicles as the overall spending budget remained the same while the prices went down, discounts and rebates went up  - buying media with up to 90% discounts is now something ordinary on the local media market.
The climate was very good for the clients in 2009, 13 of top 20 spenders increased their budgets and in some cases we saw over + 50% growth (Reckitt Benckiser, Henkel and Ferrero).
Top 20 Advertisers in Romania – 2009 vs 2008 comparison:
|  | Advertiser | 2009 budgets - rate card (mil. euro) | 2008 comparison | Advertiser | 2008 budgets - rate card (mil. euro) | |
| 1. | P&G | 261 | - 22% | P&G | 335 | |
| 2. | Cosmote | 155.5 | + 19,7% | Unilever | 187,4 | |
| 3. | Orange | 149,5 | + 26,7% | L’Oreal | 176,9 | |
| 4. | Vodafone | 131,5 | - 0,4% | Vodafone | 132 | |
| 5. | Unilever | 130,6 | - 30,3% | Cosmote | 129,9 | |
| 6. | Coca-Cola | 119,6 | +13,2% | Orange | 118 | |
| 7. | Kraft Foods | 116,3 | + 3,3% | Kraft Foods | 112,6 | |
| 8. | Reckitt Benckiser | 116,3 | + 50,6% | Coca-Cola | 105,6 | |
| 9. | Henkel | 112,6 | + 57,2% | European Drinks&Food | 94,3 | |
| 10. | L’Oreal | 107 | - 39,5% | Danone | 86,4 | |
| 11. | Danone | 98,7 | + 14,2% | Nestle | 81,8 | |
| 12. | European Drinks&Food | 87,7 | + 3,6% | Reckitt Benckiser | 77,2 | |
| 13. | Nestle | 93,1 | + 13,7% | Romtelecom | 72,1 | |
| 14. | Ferrero | 85,2 | + 74,6% | Henkel | 71,6 | |
| 15. | Johnson Wax | 78,8 | + 18,1% | Ursus | 70,5 | |
| 16. | Colgate-Palmolive | 74,7 | + 6,7% | Colgate-Palmolive | 70 | |
| 17. | Romtelecom | 70,6 | - 2% | Beiersdorf | 69,6 | |
| 18. | GlaxoSmithKline | 69,3 | + 46,5% | Johnson Wax | 66,7 | |
| 19. | Beiersdorf | 51,6 | - 25,9% | Renault Nissan | 61,3 | |
| 20. | Heineken | 51,2 | - 7,4% | Heineken | 55,3 | |
Source:Â Alfa Cont – Romanian Advertising Market
Top10 | Agency Name/ Turnover 2008 (eur) / Turnover 2007 (eur)
Continue reading ‘Romanian Media & Advertising in 2008 – Financial results’
SATI: Romanian Online Advertising – Market Overview
Here are 14 points underlining the main players on this market in 2009. Since some people might consider the list below “a top”, I must say that it is only a list and it is based on our INTERNAL RESEARCH. For example, the large public found in May that Boom was split in two (Trade Ads/Netbridge Investments). In fact, they were working under the new structure for quite some time.
We also tried to point out the cases where clients are given access to a 3rd party adserver/report because transparency is a very important thing on a very young market. But the main idea of this post is to point out the fragmentation of the market in 2009 (I wrote this because some of my colleagues in the industry are very competitive and often like to start endless debates):
Continue reading ‘SATI: Romanian Online Advertising Market – 2009 Fragmentation Map’
Do you plan to do online business in Romania? Contact me.
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