Labels switch ad budgets from press to cinema. (News).

Record companies are slashing their budgets on press advertising and ploughing their money instead into cinema and outdoor promotion, new research reveals.

Labels spent 15.5m [pounds sterling] on press campaigns during 2002, 10.7% less than the previous year and down 38.5% on 1999 when spending in the sector totalled 25.2m [pounds sterling]. But, at the same time, money spent on direct mail, cinema and outdoor advertising has hit record levels.

AC Nielsen MMS figures published in the new BPI Statistical Handbook, show that record companies increased their spending on direct mail by 113.3% over 2002 to 753,000 [pounds sterling], while outdoor advertising budgets rose 59.6% to 530,000 [pounds sterling] and cinema advertising 38.2% to 7.7m [pounds sterling]. All figures exclude co-op campaigns.

Despite these increases, overall advertising expenditures among labels dropped by 4% in the year, as belts were tightened in the three key areas of TV, press and radio. Record companies ...