Guest Post by Naeem Pani Wala
Unlike other countries, cellular companies in Pakistan hold a vital share in advertising spending; both in print and electronic media – Mobile advertising is considered as back bone of advertising industry in Pakistan.
When we see global stats, In 2007 only 4 billion US dollars were spent by mobile companies on advertising (globally), while only Procter and Gamble had more advertising budget then this, that year – however, situation in Pakistan is obviously lot different.
High paying and long running advertising campaigns contributed a lot in advertising industry. I remember that before telecom era, even the salaries were very small in advertising companies, but then came the boom and advertising touched new heights.
Maybe it was strategic mistake by advertising industry to rely this much only on telecom sector. That’s the reason, the downfall of telecom sector (to some extent at least) is severely felt by advertising agencies at most.
For example, as per estimates, once there was a time when Telenor Pakistan had over 400 million Rupees advertising budget per year, however, they figures are significantly lowering now.
In connection with slowing trends of Telecom market, advertising companies are laying off their work force. In a recent development, two renowned advertising agencies fired more than 50 % staff.
Although here in Karachi, situation is stable but Islamabad’s market is observed rapidly shrinking. Midas already has downsized its staff from over 80 to 44 while MPL cut down from 52 to 25 yesterday. MPL terminated 27 workers without any notice, as their employees were asked to leave their positions immediately.
We may term other elements in such layoffs, such as over all economic crises in the country, and increasing inflation, but reduction in advertising budget from telecom companies is considered the main hand behind all this.
