R3 has released a report looking at best practice in media investment in China. R3’s China Media Investment Effectiveness report reviews media placement trends across categories and provides marketers with insights on buying costs, ad visibility and placement effectiveness. The report is released in partnership with market research company CTR.

Factors Impacting Media Investment in 2023

Increasing downward pressure on China’s macro economy is expected to contract the growth rate of the country’s advertising market by more than 10% in 2022. However, the value of China’s advertising market is expected to grow and exceed 1,200 billion yuan. In such a complex and volatile economic and media environment, advertisers need to demand more of their media investment.

Some questions being asked are:

  • Is my media spend growing at the same or below average rate as my peers?
  • Is my media mix optimized and aligned with buying models, billing units, evaluation indicators and billing indicators?
  • In addition to regular rate card rates, discounts and loading fees, when should I re-evaluate and adjust the KPI settings of my media placements?

Increasing Media ROI with the Right Evaluation Criteria

Effective KPI setting can improve the quality of media traffic, and as a result, help marketers increase their return on media investment. R3’s China Media Investment Effectiveness report explores the complex relationship between media placement and evaluation criteria across 5 major mainstream media formats (online media, outdoor media, TV, radio, and print), giving special focus to effect-oriented media and e-commerce in-site media.

Online and television (reality and drama) content partnerships have shown to be able to deliver significant brand awareness for marketers in China, however, many brands still lack robust and transparent procurement index systems for these areas. This report looks at how marketers can implement best practice procurement frameworks to ensure the integrity of brand exposure benefits, and how to implement best practice in developing quantified evaluations to measure program influence and brand enhancement effect.

In the case of online media, systematic interpretation of different advertising formats, buying models and pricing units is provided. The report also analyzes other media evaluation criteria such as definitions, purpose, acquisition modes, and industry usage rates.

This report is in Mandarin. To request a copy, please contact us.