Archive:Advertising services statistics - NACE Rev. 1.1
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- Data from January 2009, most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database.
This article presents the European Union (EU) structural business statistics for advertising services, corresponding to NACE Group 74.4, which includes:
- the creation and placing of outdoor advertising;
- the sale of advertisement time and space;
- the distribution or delivery of advertising material;
- direct marketing, sponsorship and sales promotion services.
Note that advertising enterprises buying and reselling sales time or space tend to have a relatively high level of turnover (and therefore a relatively low gross operating rate), because purchases of goods and services tend to be high relative to personnel costs, reflecting the distributive nature of this part of their activity.
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Main statistical findings
Advertising and direct marketing are among the activities for which expenditures tend to rapidly decrease when the economic climate is not favourable. However, when an upturn is foreseen, expenditure on these services generally increase faster than the economy in general. This sector was affected by the slowdown observed in the EU’s economy in 2001 and 2002, and again by the recession that started in the second half of 2008.
Advertising and direct marketing enterprises engage in services aimed at promoting goods, services and information, be it to the general public, specific target groups, or other enterprises. Advertising maintains or raises awareness about an issue, event, person, product or brand, and so can support choice and competition.
Structural profile
The 210.100 enterprises that were classified to advertising activities (NACE Group 74.4) in the EU in 2006 employed an estimated 882.000 persons and generated 38.6 billion euro of value added. By all of these measures the contribution of advertising to the business services (NACE Divisions 72 and 74) total was between 4.0 % and 4.8 %. In turnover terms, however,advertising made a greater contribution to business services: its EUR 144.4 billion of turnover in 2006 was equivalent to 8.2 % of the business services total. This high turnover reflected the fact that some parts of advertising involve buying and reselling advertising space, effectively a distributive trade activity, which therefore involves high turnover with relatively low margins.
The United Kingdom and Germany were the two largest contributors to the EU’s value added in advertising activities in 2006, both contributing just under one fifth of the total. The contribution of France (18.2 %) was only slightly lower, but was itself nearly twice as high as the next highest share, from Spain. Nevertheless, in employment terms, Germany, France and Spain all had larger workforces in the advertising sector than were recorded in the United Kingdom. Few Member States were strongly specialized in this sector, with Sweden, France and Latvia recording the highest shares (0.9 %) of advertising activities in non-financial business economy value added. Using this measure, the least specialized Member State was Luxembourg, with advertising generating 0.3 % of non-financial business economy value added.
Expenditure and productivity
A large share of operating expenditure within EU advertising activities was accounted for by purchases of goods and services, as the share of personnel costs was just 17.1 %, the lowest of all of the business services sectors. Nevertheless the share of personnel costs was slightly higher than the average for the non-financial business economy (16.1 %). Tangible investment by the advertising sector was low, EUR 2.6 billion in 2006, resulting in an investment rate of 6.8 %.
Average personnel costs for the advertising sector were EUR 30.9 thousand per employee, almost exactly the same as the business services average, while the apparent labour productivity was EUR 43.7 thousand per person employed, some EUR 3.6 thousand per person above the business services average. As a result the advertising sector had the highest wage adjusted labour productivity ratio of all business services sectors, at 141.5 %, although this was still 9.6 percentage points below the non-financial business economy average.
Data sources and availability
The main part of the analysis in this article is derived from structural business statistics (SBS), including core, business statistics which are disseminated regularly, as well as information compiled on a multi-yearly basis, and the latest results from development projects.
Other possible data sources include short-term statistics (STS) and the Labour force survey (LFS). In addition, use has also been made of specialist sources for particular areas, notably transport, energy, research and development, environment, tourism and information society statistics.
Context
The freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment are central principles to the internal market for services and are set out in the EC Treaty. They guarantee EU enterprises the freedom to establish themselves in other Member States,and the freedom to provide services on the territoryof another EU Member State. The Directive on services in the internal market (COM(2006)123) aims to achieve a genuine internal market in services, removing legal and administrative barriers to the development of services activities between Member States. The Directive was to be implemented by Member States by the end of 2009 at the latest. As well as covering most business services (with the notable exception of services of temporary work agencies), the Directive applies to a wide variety of services including industrial and construction activities, as well as distributive trades, hotels and restaurants, travel agents, real estate and renting services.
See also
Further Eurostat information
Publications
Dedicated section
Other information
- Directive 2006/123 of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market