Emirates Business 24/7 reports that despite huge expectations of online ad spend in the next few years, an expert in the UAE said the print media will remain the leader in attracting the money spent on advertising.

Neither TV nor outdoor is expected to rival print media, said Sami Raffoul, General Manager of Pan Arab Research Centre. The internet will also lag behind as an advertising medium, he said, because of factors such as internet illiteracy and difficulty of access due to the language barrier.

According to Raffoul a moderate internet user can enumerate at least 100 websites dealing with careers, real estate, general interest, sports or business in the UAE. Audiences of the same age group and interests in different geographical locations, such as Jeddah or Cairo, will cite a different 100 sites. "In other words, the club of websites likely to be visited by an audience is influenced by the local community and personal needs and the universality of information sought," he said.

He said that an internet user in a place like Egypt or Morocco would only visit an Indian or Malaysian website for a specific reason, and that too rarely. Advertising pop-ups that might appear in the local languages of these portals will definitely mean nothing to the viewer, even if he of she has a rudimentary understanding of the languages used.

Raffoul said that advertisers' geographical locations will continue influencing Internet advertising, even if the internet was without any borders. "One news website, for example, might claim that it has received hundreds of thousands of visitors in a certain month, but who are they and where is their location and would they be interested in viewing an advertisement for a local bank in the UAE?

We don't know," he added. The reason why internet ad spend seems so huge, he said, is that advertisers would need to target numerous websites to receive the desired viewership. On the contrary, in a newspaper environment, a single advertisement can be placed for a specific rate, undoubtedly higher, yet reaching a wider audience, Raffoul said.

Emirates Business 24/7 reports that advertising spend in the UAE increased by a staggering 43 per cent in the first quarter of 2008. The figures are driven more by the increase in costs and not so much in advertising exposure, believe industry experts.

Dubai-based Pan-Arab Research Centre, in a detailed report on the advertising spend in 2007, revealed that the country had witnessed a massive growth in the total advertising budget last year to $1,303 million (Dh4,785m) an increase of more than 26 per cent over the previous year. In comparison, the UAE spent $1,077m in 2006.

This year, the ad spend has already crossed $441m in the first quarter, more than a one-third increase over the previous year.

The country is expected to retain its position this year as the highest spender in the region - second on the list is Saudi Arabia. In the past, the UAE's increase in ad spend has been lower than the regional increase, but this year the rise is expected not only to lead the region but surpass the regional increase percentage-wise.

The increase in ad spend in the pan-Arab region was 26 per cent in 2007 over the previous year, and, in comparison, the UAE's ad spend increase was 21 per cent.

Industry experts are attributing this massive increase to the rise in the cost of advertising. However, they are not ruling out further increases in the advertising budget as more retail outlets are to be added to the existing retail space.

The first quarter of this year continued to see the same trend in the division of advertising budgets, with newspapers claiming the largest chunk of advertising revenue, and magazines and television as distant second and third players. Outdoors showed a steady climb but will most probably still maintain its growth in the single digit. Last year the outdoors segment had five per cent of the advertising share.

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