Malaysia’s advertising expenditure for the first two months of the year has shrunk by 5% to RM830.8 million from RM878 million.

The March general elections made up RM11.2 million or 1% of adex for the first two months of last year. Omitting that amount means adex for the first two months of this year fell 4%, says OMD's media newsletter for March.

According to the newsletter which referred to Nielsen research figures, newspapers have been the hardest hit, suffering a drop of 9% in January and February compared with the same months last year. Nevertheless, newspaper advertising still accounted for over half the adex pie at RM465.7 million. Cinema advertising suffered the next biggest drop of 7%, falling from RM4.2 million last year to RM3.9 million.

Adex for television dropped 1%, likely cushioned by the 12% increase in January this year compared with the same month last year. Internet adex, which plunged 48% in January this year compared to January 2008, also shrank 1%. 

The highest growth was for point-of-sale adex which grew 5% from RM12.6 million to RM13.2 million, followed by outdoor advertising which grew 4%. Adex for radio grew 2% to RM41.3 million from RM40.4 million.