Advertising industry shifts focus to intelligence marketing

More mergers and acquisitions will be staged in the country's advertising industry this year, and the industry's focus is shifting from digital marketing to intelligence marketing, industry experts said.

"Advertising is usually regarded as a barometer of the economy. With the economic growth slowing down, the intensified competition will lead to more innovated marketing and also more mergers and acquisitions within the industry," said Zhang Guohua, chairman of China Advertising Association.

According to Zhao Jie, president of Miaozhen Systems, a Beijing-based marketing research company, enterprises begin to care about both brand image and marketing effect when they put on advertisements.

"Our clients used to pay more attention to the brand image and don't care much about the marketing effect. But from this year on, we noticed that they begin to pay attention to the marketing effect as well," said Zhao, adding that's why intelligence marketing really matters.

According to the "2023 China Digital Marketing Trend Report" released by Miaozhen Systems, GDMS and Media 360, the total marketing expenses of enterprises have dipped in 2022 compared with a year earlier, but enterprises' average marketing budget is expected to grow at 16 percent year-on-year in 2023. Also, enterprises will attach more attention to the real marketing effects.

Zhang Ying contributed to this story