International Advertising

According to the annual survey on advertising agency billing published in Advertising Trend, a monthly by KFAA, 73 agencies reported total billing of 2,567 billion won, an increase of 24.8% over 1993. In U.S. dollars (US $ 1.00=808 Korean won),the total billing was around 3.1 billion. By coincidence, the agency billing growth in 1994 was identical to that of the total Korean advertising expenditures. Total number of employees increased from 5,441 in 1993 to 6,415 in 1994,or an increase of around 18%.

Total Advertising Expenditures for 1995 was around 5 trillion won (equal to US $6.2 billion). And for 1996, total ad expenditure is expected to exceed 7 trillion won (equal to US $8.6 billion).

One major development in the winter of 1994 was the merger of the Korea Independent Advertising Agencies Association with the Korea Association of Advertising Agencies. KIAAA, established in 1991 by independent agencies with some 40-odd members, has been pressing for the release of locked in house clients of the KAAA member agencies. However, KAAA members were not able to produce any significant impact in their services to advertisers. Lacking in resources compared to the KAAA members, KIAAA at last decided to merge. The single tier agency commission system effected January1,1995 also prodded the move. Actually, there was no room in the market for two competing agency association. As a result, KAAA membership increased to 42 from 22.