Tuesday 27 January 2009

No Shit, Sherlock

Today's edition of The National carries the stunning headline, 'Property Adspend Plunges'.

WTF? OMG!

We all love a downturn story, right? But when you pass filler ads crying out for you to call the outdoor company as you drive down the Sheikh Zayed Road and spot gigantic billboards on the way up to Mirdif begging you to 'advertise here', you can maybe get the inkling that we may be onto a trend here.

Gulf News (700g) is down to almost half its 2008 pagination, while the (700g) refers to its weight today compared to the 1.3kg weight of GN and its regular advertising supplements in November last year. Al Nisr's 'Property Weekly' is down from a December 2008 156 pages and a 54% ad/ed ratio to 84 pages and a 41% ad/ed ratio. They're pulling in something like 49 pages less a week in advertising. And December was weak for the magazine, which was pushing higher paginations earlier in the year.

And you need a bloke from PARC to tell you that property advertising's on the way down? Do me a lemon, guv!

“Before, papers were more than 120 pages, with a lot of advertising, but now all of this is reduced,” PARC's Mr Jichi told The National's Keach Hagey, throwing caution to the winds and baring his soul in a mad, confessional moment.

Memories of 2008. The sound of air being sucked through teeth and quiet, confident laughter: "SZR circuit, mate? You alright to wait for six months? That's for the premium payers, like. If you want standard rate it could be a year or more. Of course, if you were feeling generous, if you know what I mean, we could maybe get it down to five months and a bit, you know?"

Today's Gulf News carries a supplement for the Abu Dhabi Real Estate and Investment Show, which will run from the 27-29 Jan at the Abu Dhabi NEC. It's all of 16 pages. Listening to real estate people talking up the market for the next three days is going to be interesting.

8 comments:

Spear The Almighty said...

There is no problem. Everything is great. Invest now!

Lol!

I work in the real estate sector in finance and you know what? I think the worst is yet to come...

Elle said...

AD is in a world of it's own

Seabee said...

For all the hype and claims, I've never thought The National was any better than the other papers. Same stories, same naive opinions presented as news, same stating the bleedin' obvious from 'experts' - like this 'story', same dodgy statistcs quoted out of context.

Stand by for the screaming headline 'World in economic downturn!!'

Anonymous said...

Alex,

I don't know what you find so objectionable about PARC's Elie Jichi. We all know that adspend is taking a dive, Elie is telling us just how much.

You know, not everyone weighs their newspapers :)

Alexander said...

@MPR

I wasn't being horrid. Just amused.

LOL. Perhaps the world would be a better place if more people did! You should enjoy the irony of weighing coverage by the kilo!

Alexander said...

@Seabee

I actually really, really like The National. And I'm a big Keach Hagey fan, too. But the story just hit me on the funny bone...

rosh said...

"'World in economic downturn!!' ... however, the UAE shall not be affected."

Just completing that asinine statement from the GN's/KT/TN's etc all :)

It's just mind-numbing!! People who've lived in the UAE for light-years, hence, perhaps haven't had better exposure or transparent news coverage don't buy this sort of shit anymore - yet, they powers and fools that be, churn out garbage, day in day out.

Dave said...

Is there a downturn?

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