The Bookseller.com

8th September 2008

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W H Smith tops the ad spend league

21.05.08 Graeme Neill

W H Smith increased its book advertising expenditure by 7.7% to about £8.5m last year, spending almost twice as much as its closest rival Waterstone's. According to figures from Nielsen Media Research, total book ad spend was £35m in 2007, a drop of 4.46% from 2006's expenditure of £36.6m.

The second most heavy spender was Waterstone's, which spent £4.3m. However, Waterstone's spend dropped by almost a third from 2006, when it spent £6.3m. Both retailers had high profile television advertising campaigns in the run-up to Christmas. Smiths' television expenditure was £6.8m, almost four times as big as its press spend of £1.7m. Waterstone's expenditure had an opposite focus with its television spend of £1.9m being outstripped by press expenditure of £2.3m.

Random House spent the most cash among publishers and was the third most extravagant overall, with an ad spend of £2.3m. Transworld and HarperCollins rounded out the top five spenders —both forking out £1.7m.

Retail W H Smith Graeme Neill