The negative repercussions (-44.2%) of the lockdown on the advertising investment market in Italy also continued in April. The collection in the first four months thus reaches -18.5%. If Nielsen's estimate on search, social, classified (sponsored ads) and so-called Over The Top is excluded from the web collection, the trend in the period January-April stands at -22.5% and is valid for all media and sectors both in the month and in the quarter.
TV fell 45.5% in April, closing the quarter at -19.2%. In the single month, newspapers and periodicals lost 40.3% and 56.5% respectively (the trend in the first four months was -24.1% and -33.3%). Radio was down 77.8% in April and 28.5% in the quarter. The same Internet: -31.9%, with the loss for the four months to -10.2% (-12.5% if we consider only the FCP-Assointernet perimeter). The out of home also suffers: transit lost 88.4% in April (-47.7% in four months), direct mail 71.9% in the single month (-36.8% January- April).
As for the product sectors, the only one that marks a positive trend in April is media publishing which grows by 1.5% compared to the same period of 2019. Instead, all the others drop in the single month, especially cars ( -33%), tourism-travel (-66.6%) and leisure (-64.3%). In the four-month period, the home management and institution-sector sectors are the only ones that closed positively, by 2.9% and 0.3% respectively.
In May, which coincided with the easing of limitations, there was a recovery in the purchase of advertising space on TV, radio and newspapers by investors, focusing on positive languages and returning to normal. Brands continue to show empathy for their customers, so much so that almost a third of new television creatives still include references to Covid-19, but messages have changed and optimism is more at the center of communication.
