As Egyptian people brace themselves for presidential elections, the capital city Cairo, is covered with banners that promote presidential candidates.
However marketing and advertising specialists, including Haytham Irfan, the head of the Egyptian Advertising Union expect a 50% drop in presidential campaign ad spend this year around. The total amount that candidates will spend on marketing and advertising will not exceed one Billion EGP, according to Irfan.
Irfan estimate that the outdoor advertising spending for coming presidential elections will be to the tune of 20 million EGP, which is far less than the elections of 2012.
Morad Allam who owns a printing house in Cairo says that all the printers are suffering from lackluster printing market however as presidential election approaches the demand for printed material also increases.
Ayman Jaber Atoot another printer believes candidates will focus more on visual rather than printed media. According to Atoot candidates spend 40% of their budget on TV and newspapers. With 30%, outdoor advertising comes in second and the rest goes to different promotional items including, flyers, and brochures and so on.
Mostafa Dreini, owner of Dreini Printing House, pointed out that his printing house has already printed more the 100000 images of Marshal Abdel Fattah El-Sisi at the cost of 600 pounds per thousand images. El-Sisi pictures are to be sold to retailers at the price of 80 cents per picture which they sell to people for one pound.
Dreini expects that the demand for pictures of the candidates increases ahead of presidential elections. In order to be able to respond to the demand, the printing house has already stocked up on paper and supplies.
On the other hand printers are warning against the skyrocketing prices which already led to a considerable increase in print production. According to Atoot the price of the imported paper has increased by 2000 pounds per ton. Now each ton of paper costs around 9000 pounds. The price of a banner meter has also increased to 22 pounds, while the price of 1000 posters has hit 600 pounds.
Amro Khodr from Cairo Chamber of Commerce says that it is still not possible to predict which media grabs the biggest share of election campaigns because candidates have yet to officially nominate themselves. Candidates can nominate themselves starting 31 March 2014; the nominations window will last until 20 April. The final list of candidates will be announced on 2 May. The term of the presidential winner will begin the day the final results are announced which may be as early as 5 June, if the winner wins in the first round. If there is no winner in the first round, the second round of voting takes place from 16 and 17 June; after which the winner of the second round will be announced on 26 June.
