Festival highlights international exchanges in advertising

The Shanghai International Advertising Festival began on Thursday, highlighting international exchanges with the participation of global industry experts and business leaders from nearly 20 countries.

In 2023, the advertising business revenue of Shanghai's above-scale enterprises and institutions hit 294.59 billion yuan (US$41.37 billion), accounting for about a quarter of the country's total, posing a year-on-year increase of 23.7 percent, setting a record, according to a white paper on the development of the city's advertising industry released by Shanghai Administration for Market Regulation on Thursday.

As of the end of June, Shanghai had registered 98,781 advertising enterprises and 11,325 foreign-invested advertising enterprises, with 22,000 enterprises obtaining the business scope of "digital advertising."

In the first half of this year, the business income of the city's above-scale advertising enterprises reached 128.91 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.2 percent.

During the festival, experts and business leaders from countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Thailand and Australia will bring the latest international digital advertising development achievements and new trends, and discuss new opportunities for the development of the Chinese market with a global perspective.

More than 70 top domestic and international lecturers will conduct 52 forum sessions, and the participation of global top 500 enterprises such as Coca-Cola, P&G, and General Motors demonstrates the confidence of international brands in the Chinese market.

The festival's forums will cover insights into the global consumer market, exploring how Chinese enterprises can effectively expand overseas.

On Thursday, the Zhongguang Creativity Industrial Park, Putuo District Digital Advertising Park and Yangtze River Delta Ecology and Greenery Integration Demonstration Zone Digital Advertising Park signed cooperation agreements with the UK Advertising Export Group and the Advertising Association of Thailand, which have organized international exchange groups and advertising companies to participate in the event and visit Chinese advertising companies and local brands in Shanghai with in-depth investigation of its business environment.

The administration said that under the platform of the festival it will promote more Chinese companies to go global and seek opportunities for overseas development.

"Promoting international exchanges is one of the core tasks of the festival and we actively recommend enterprises to apply for the city's high-quality business development fund and deliver support for leading enterprises on overseas layout," said Zhang Hongbing, director of the administration's advertising supervision and management department.