The advertising market in Taiwan recorded a 7% decrease, to reach a new low of NT$39.42 billion in 2009,according to the latest report from The Nielsen Company,Taiwan. This was a direct result of the financial crisis, coupled with the effect from an introduction of the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act in 2009.

Due to the cut in advertising budget from the Real Estate industry, Luxury Goods and Tobacco Category, magazines suffered the most, posting 16.4 percent decrease, followed by the 'Out of Home' category, which saw a decrease of 15.1%, and the newspaper sector also showed a decrease of 9.7%. In contrast, there was no great variance from both the Television and Radio sectors.

The Real Estate industry continues to be the number one sector. The Pharmaceutical and Beauty industry is the 2nd biggest category. Interestingly enough, half of the top ten growing categories belonged to the Pharmaceutical/Beauty sector. Far Glory Group remained on top in 2009 and P&G became the 2nd biggest advertiser.

In R3's recent En-spire Wave 3 Study, P&G leverages top stars across several brands.

Research by Karen Xu ,R3 Beijing; Know more here
To learn more about En-Spire , click here

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced on Feb 1 the commencing of the nationwide marketing for its Lucozade sports drink in mainland China.

According to the announcement, China's second largest drink manufacturer Uni-President China Holdings Ltd., will distribute Lucozade to Chinese supermarkets. The two companies concluded the distribution deal in September last year.

GSK Guangdong Marketing Manager said, "This time we have designated a company to produce Lucozade in mainland China and we believe Uni-President's comprehensive sales channels and networks will effectively market the sports drink."

Research by Vera Xie, R3 Beijing; Know more here

COFCO recently announced the launching of a new functional juice beverage named Tunhe. As China's first functional juice, Tunhe is made of high concentration of tomato juice and apricot juice.

Different from "Lohas", the other famous COFCO juice beverage, "Tunhe" series focuses on nutrition and function.

In China functional drink market, 96% are carbonated drinks, while the share of pure fruit juice functional beverage is close to zero.

Research by Vera Xie,R3 Beijing; Know more here