Nielsen analyzes direct mail use in Germany

In the first half of 2008, direct mail was the fourth strongest medium in the advertising market*. The advertising companies invested almost 1.8 billion euros in addressing target groups by post. This corresponds to a media mix share* of 14.1 percent.

Nielsen Media Research presents its latest study “Nielsen Direct Mail Status Report 1st Half 2008”. The data relate to the development of the medium of direct mail in comparison to the overall advertising market*, the advertising behavior of industries and companies, the distribution of direct mail by address and advertising mail type, and the average investment for the delivery of direct mail per household.

According to this, the medium of direct mail had the highest number of advertisers in the gross advertising market* in the first half of 2008: 33.9 percent of advertisers, or 11,687 of the total of 34,507 companies, used postal advertising. Of the companies with a total media budget* of over 25 million euros, 86.2 percent (75 companies) used advertising mail. Although companies in this category represent only 0.6 percent of all direct mail users, they generated 31.7 percent of all monetary direct mail advertising pressure.

As can also be seen from the analysis, in the first half of the year 213 companies referred directly or indirectly to the European Football Championship in their direct mail advertising. This means that EM-related mailings accounted for 2.9 percent or EUR 22.1 million of direct mail advertising expenditure. The official UEFA Euro 2008TM logo was used in a total of 14.2 percent of the commercials, 74.8 percent of the creations contained an indirect, associated EM reference and 11.0 percent were advertising motifs that also illustrated a EM reference.

The only official football EM sponsor of the top 10 companies with EM-related direct mail advertising was Hyundai with an advertising volume of 0.8 million euros. However, Weltbild Verlag ran the largest EM campaign via direct mail with an advertising budget of 7.1 million euros. In the first half of 2008, the sectors that made the most use of advertising mail to advertise their products and services were mail order (732.4 million euros), trade organizations (347.7 million euros) and furniture and furnishing stores (75.4 million euros ).

Analogous to the industry ranking, a mail order company is at the top of the direct mail company ranking: Quelle Versand with a gross advertising expenditure of 65.3 million euros. With 648.3 million euros, unaddressed mail only occupies second place in direct mail gross advertising expenditure, but it is used by the largest number of advertisers. In the direct mail market, almost 77 percent of the gross advertising expenses* were attributable to advertising mailings that contained a response element.

In the first half of 2008, advertisers invested a national average of EUR 45 per household in sending direct mail. They invested above average in Nielsen area 6, below average in Nielsen areas 1 and 2.

* Above-the-line media supplemented by direct mail and the Internet

www.nielsen.de