National Assembly Elections Revive Outdoor Advertising Market
Advertising companies have gone on high alert after the announcement of the parliamentary elections in Kuwait. With nominations and registrations being filed for the December 2012 election, advertising companies have started courting candidates, especially as some spend hundreds and thousands of dollars (some times more than US$ 5 million), according to reports of ‘Al Arabiya’.
The dissolution of the National Assembly (which was dissolved six times earlier) has brought with it some good tidings for the advertising sector in the country. Though some expected a decline in the market during the electoral procedures, Khamis Al Hijmi, who owns the ‘Vision Media Group’, has a different view. Khamis, who has an experience of more than 15 years in the industry, says that the advertising market will see a boom in the coming period.
Hijmi observes that indoor and outdoor advertisements pull in the attention of crowds rather than seminars and meetings. He added, “If candidates are looking to convince the voters and lead them to cast their votes, then they have to build a strong media image.”
Talking about the total expected expenditure during the elections, Hijmi said, “There is no particular statistics as to the total amount to be spend in the national assembly elections. Though based on past experiences, we have seen that candidates from the ‘Second Circuit’ (region wise classification for the electoral procedure) spend more generously as majority of the candidates there are from the merchant class. The Fifth Circuit is also a pretty large circle and stands second to the second circuit.”
Hijmi said that the election campaigns are usually priced from US$ 500,000 to 2.3 million, though some political alliances spend a mammoth figure. “I have seen that during political alliances, parties spending more than US$ 35 million for election campaigning.”
