Two-thirds of the UK's top 100 advertisers increased their above-the-line spend in 2003, reflecting the optimism pervading British industry as it appears to be heading out of downturn and into a period of growth.
In the sixth year of Marketing's exclusive analysis of the top 100 advertisers' expenditure, with figures provided by Nielsen Media Research, total spend rose by 6.3% in 2003 to £3.5bn.
The hike reflects a return to typical year-on-year growth, following an outstanding 2002, when spend increased by 11.8% as confidence returned with a bang following a fall of 3.7% in 2001.
Though 33 of the top 100 reduced their adspend in 2003, compared with 25 in 2002 and 59 in 2001, of the 67 that increased their spend, ten boosted it by 50% or more, with three - AXA Sun Life Direct, Hutchison 3G and 118 118 - hiking it by more than 100%.
Indeed, the latter two increased their budgets by more than 1000% each, with Hutchison 3G shooting up the table from 7788th to become the UK's 15th biggest advertiser in 2003, with a spend of £49.8m. The company rose through the ranks on the back of the launch of its 3 mobile brand on March 3 last year.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) held the top spot in the table for a second year.
The FMCG colossus, whose brands include Ariel, Fairy, Bold and Pringles, increased its spend by 12.8% to £187m, which represents its highest ever adspend and is a £21.2m hike on its 2002 expenditure.
P&G associate director, UK media, Bernard Balderston says: "Our total expenditure has been strong, which signals the competitiveness of the environment P&G finds itself in. We have some heavily competitive battles in the babycare sector with Pampers, and in the beauty sector with Pantene, Head & Shoulders and Olay, which have seen strong growth in spend. Advertising is an important part of our proposition - we offer premium products and ads are the best way to get that message across."
P&G's main rival, Unilever, is split by Nielsen into its separate operations. The four divisions' combined total would make the company the UK's biggest spender, at £194m. But unlike previous years, when the gap in spend between the FMCG giants has been as much as £15m, this year Unilever leads by £7.1m. However, the gap is wider than it was in 2002, when P&G spent just £2.8m less than the Unilever companies.
Unilever last week pledged to raise expenditure on advertising and promotions to a record 15% of turnover by 2005 in a bid to increase growth from its scaled-down brand portfolio. P&G invested just 10% of its $43bn (£22.6bn) turnover in advertising last year.
The government's advertising unit, COI Communications, spends another year at second place in the top 100.
Having come under fire for topping the table in 2001 with a record spend of £143.8m, it slashed its budget by 15% in 2002. But this year it has upped its spend again, by 14.8% to £138.2m.
The unit, which runs more than 60 campaigns on behalf of government departments each year, was responsible for promoting issues as diverse as flexible working hours on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry to crime reduction for the Home Office. Its latest high-profile work is the 'Use Your Head' recruitment campaign for the Teacher Training Agency.
BT remains third in the table, with its adspend fairly static. It also retains its position as the highest single brand in the table; the majority of the top ten are multiple-brand companies.
L'Oreal's 27.6% increase was the biggest in the top ten, taking its spend to £90.4m. Last year it ran an interactive TV campaign through WWAV Rapp Collins to promote its Laboratoires Garnier range. The ads encouraged viewers to enter their personal details to receive a money-off coupon and the chance to win gift sets. Data was captured to build a database.
The increase in spend propelled L'Oreal Golden into fourth place in the table - a position occupied by Ford for the past two years.
The troubled car marque, which announced last April that it would seek to cut its adspend significantly, did so by 16.6%, pushing it into fifth place.
All media except cinema, which suffered an 11.8% drop in spend by the top 100, benefited from marketers' advertising confidence in 2003.
Outdoor took the biggest increase (29.5%), followed by radio (24.0%), press (7.7%) and TV (2%).
TOP 100 UK ADVERTISERS 2003 1-100
2003 2002 Organisation Spend 2003 Spend 2002 Chnge
(pounds) (pounds) (%)
1 1 Procter & Gamble 186,976,473 165,775,879 12.8
2 2 COI Communications 138,238,403 120,447,020 14.8
3 3 BT 96,313,883 96,721,432 -0.4
4 5 L'Oreal Golden 90,364,657 70,830,322 27.6
5 4 Ford 79,141,052 94,918,553 -16.6
6 11 Lever Faberge Personal Care 69,869,822 58,646,353 19.1
7 8 Nestle 68,727,229 63,436,495 8.3
8 13 Orange 62,569,875 55,717,058 12.3
9 6 Masterfoods 62,399,473 67,003,623 -6.9
10 10 DFS 61,403,696 59,394,076 3.4
11 7 Renault 60,651,480 66,145,984 -8.3
12 14 Reckitt Benckiser 59,487,194 53,047,752 12.1
13 18 Lever Faberge Home Care 58,978,839 43,609,051 35.2
14 9 Vauxhall 58,569,832 63,381,981 -7.6
15 7788 Hutchison 3G 49,809,097 37,228 133694.7
16 17 Volkswagen 49,200,106 45,386,344 8.4
17 15 Sainsbury's 48,688,172 48,738,501 -0.1
18 12 Toyota 48,245,339 55,966,094 -13.8
19 24 Kellogg 43,358,847 39,412,690 10.0
20 21 Vodafone 43,339,660 42,117,464 2.9
21 41 British Sky Broadcasting 41,632,385 26,659,694 56.2
22 20 McDonald's 40,848,662 42,214,085 -3.2
23 40 News International 39,356,788 28,614,770 37.5
24 30 B&Q 38,482,355 33,898,974 13.5
25 32 Direct Line 37,944,555 33,389,470 13.6
26 16 Boots The Chemists 37,682,121 48,218,237 -21.9
27 31 Tesco 37,290,897 33,806,646 10.3
28 25 Citroen 36,697,318 39,158,836 -6.3
29 51 Nissan 36,244,445 24,522,967 47.8
30 23 Unilever Bestfoods 36,092,645 40,161,100 -10.1
31 70 Nokia 36,058,844 20,333,716 77.3
32 19 Peugeot 35,928,221 42,748,721 -16.0
33 66 AOL 35,351,188 20,554,853 72.0
34 29 Coca-Cola GB & Ireland 34,143,070 36,359,907 -6.1
35 35 O2 33,928,975 31,547,420 7.6
36 50 United Int'l Pictures 33,373,563 24,860,544 34.2
37 49 Asda 32,820,808 24,866,030 32.0
38 34 Johnson & Johnson 31,829,649 32,226,992 -1.2
39 36 Mattel 31,584,879 30,528,410 3.5
40 44 Beiersdorf 30,391,166 25,990,510 16.9
41 62 Currys 30,302,266 21,799,210 39.0
42 33 PC World 30,071,245 32,618,242 -7.8
43 61 Unilever Ice Cream
& Frozen Foods 29,070,720 22,144,526 31.3
44 37 Fiat 28,776,440 30,164,119 -4.6
45 26 GlaxoSmithKline Consumer
Healthcare 28,323,263 38,472,559 -26.4
46 52 Marks & Spencer 27,665,829 24,312,573 13.8
47 42 Woolworths 27,553,408 26,186,875 5.2
48 104 Hewlett-Packard 26,999,148 14,259,213 89.4
49 79 Buena Vista International 26,890,362 18,214,777 47.6
50 58 Argos 26,693,019 22,527,407 18.5
51 22 Diageo 26,637,594 41,906,106 -36.4
52 64 Homebase 26,002,137 21,531,237 20.8
53 54 Entertainment Films 25,073,164 23,580,270 6.3
54 48 BMW 25,032,481 25,169,901 -0.6
55 59 British Airways 24,918,919 22,457,048 11.0
56 47 Barclays 24,758,514 25,726,243 -3.8
57 39 Twentieth Century Fox 24,739,306 29,129,515 -15.1
58 43 Honda 24,500,100 25,999,136 -5.8
59 45 Associated Newspapers 24,358,067 25,844,208 -5.8
60 75 HSBC 24,299,458 19,131,643 27.0
61 65 JD Williams 24,293,583 20,615,643 17.8
62 38 British Gas 23,945,447 29,797,760 -19.6
63 71 Halifax 23,792,849 20,252,607 17.5
64 78 Mazda 21,921,242 18,330,549 19.6
65 108 Universal Music 21,749,018 13,903,904 56.4
66 136 Gillette 21,555,308 11,891,901 81.3
67 69 Specsavers 21,465,209 20,337,897 5.5
68 57 Camelot 21,407,658 23,153,408 -7.5
69 72 Kimberly-Clark 21,255,703 19,862,262 7.0
70 28 T-Mobile 21,163,400 37,013,758 -42.8
71 80 AA 21,152,263 18,054,049 17.2
72 92 Courts 21,008,604 15,688,356 33.9
73 143 Lloyds TSB 20,979,561 11,335,802 85.1
74 76 Abbey 20,879,742 19,009,106 9.8
75 90 Dell 20,619,206 15,950,221 29.3
76 83 Wrigley 20,464,026 17,133,924 19.4
77 27 MG Rover 20,453,287 37,582,309 -45.6
78 85 MFI 20,349,773 16,837,764 20.9
79 53 Cadbury Trebor Bassett 20,215,253 23,863,040 -15.3
80 74 Saab 19,733,919 19,685,779 0.2
81 84 Interbrew 19,549,556 17,068,863 14.5
82 93 Columbia TriStar 19,539,661 15,651,105 24.9
83 56 Time Computers 19,458,482 23,426,782 -16.9
84 113 Dixons Stores Group 19,285,812 13,521,715 42.6
85 117 Buena Vista Home
Entertainment 18,793,304 13,323,446 41.1
86 89 Virgin Records 18,470,744 15,973,781 15.6
87 103 Freeserve 18,304,223 14,377,057 27.3
88 46 Coors Brewers 18,256,224 25,835,281 -29.3
89 260 AXA Sun Life Direct 18,242,163 6,231,343 192.8
90 73 Jaguar 18,200,100 19,736,280 -7.8
91 126 Warner Music 17,835,188 12,556,019 42.0
92 81 More Th>n 17,690,975 18,049,354 -2.0
93 60 Audi 17,689,048 22,150,642 -20.1
94 98 Kentucky Fried Chicken 17,344,679 15,140,219 14.6
95 9249 118 118 (The Number) 17,250,903 11,986 143825.4
96 134 EasyJet 17,001,780 12,056,412 41.0
97 88 IBM 16,559,482 16,333,230 1.4
98 105 NatWest 16,299,976 14,247,952 14.4
99 107 Nationwide 16,213,667 13,917,899 16.5
100 97 Comet 16,213,124 15,233,900 6.4
Source: Nielsen Media Research
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
