World Cup to trigger increasing ad spending, food consumption: Nielsen

World Cup 2010 that will kick off on June 11 is expected to trigger increasing advertisement spending and food consumption worldwide, including Indonesia, meaning that economic activity will grow faster before and during the event, an executive said in Jakarta on Thursday.

Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director for Consumers at Nielsen Indonesia, a subsidiary of Nielsen Company, a global information and media company, told a press conference that manufacturers will see the event as an opportunity to push more sales.

"Besides, advertisement spending will also see growth during June as World Cup sponsors are geared to air their commercials," said Mitchell.

In Indonesia, he said, Nielsen's data shows that sales of World Cup products categories during the event weeks of June 5 to July 9, 2006 increased 31 percent to reach 67 billion rupiah (about 7.2 million U.S. dollars) compared to the same period of 2005.

Meanwhile, he said, categories like snack, soft drink, peanuts, cigarettes, and energy drink are also expected to enjoy more sales.

"In the period of World Cup 2006, peanuts experienced the highest growth with 72 percent, followed by cigarettes (37 percent), energy drink (35 percent), snack (28 percent) and soft drink (19 percent)," said Mitchell.

He said that sales were high especially during the week with most watched broadcast such as Germany versus Argentina in the quarterfinals that had won the most TV viewers between 10.30 pm to 2 am with 6.25 million people aged above 5 years.

"Another sales peak was during the final week that aired the final match between Italy and France which broadcasted at 11.30 pm to 4.30 am, reaching 4.2 million viewers," he said.

According to Mitchell, advertising spending will also see growth during the month of June as World Cup sponsors in Indonesia are geared to air their commercials.

"Looking at World Cup in 2002 and 2006, advertising spending in June rose to the average of 12 percent, compared to only 5 percent in non-World-Cup years," he said.

Source:Xinhua