Advertising Market Trend

May 2025

The Swiss advertising market for “traditional” media closed May 2025 down 0.9 percent on the same month the previous year, at a total of CHF 353.1 million gross. This is the smallest percentage decrease YTD.

With the exception of the media group of TV (-5.6%), traditional media once again fared well after the negative trend of the last two months. The decline in TV can be explained by the men’s UEFA Euro 2024, which significantly boosted advertising pressure in the previous year. Nevertheless, the ranking within the media mix remains unchanged: TV first, followed by print, then out-of-home, radio and cinema.

The traditional advertising market came to CHF 1’546.5 million gross, 3.7 percent lower than the previous year (2024) in a YTD comparison.

Search is the leader in the digital advertising market with a share of 53.1 percent, followed by display with 33.8 percent and YouTube with 13.1 percent.

The traditional advertising market and the digital channels (search, YouTube, display) are shown separately to enable better comparability with the previous year. Fluctuations in online recording can be exacerbated by external influences – in particular, by technical updates undertaken by major platforms such as Google or YouTube. This applies in particular to search, which sees regular changes that may affect the ability to compare gross advertising pressure with the previous year.

Advertising pressure in the market as a whole

Advertising pressure development up to May 2025 in CHF million gross.

Retail remains strong

12 out of 21 sectors in the traditional advertising market performed positively in May.

Although retail just manages to retain the top spot in a year-to-date comparison, its CHF 32.7 million in gross advertising pressure in May was only enough for third place, behind the food industry (CHF 43.8 million) and the financial sector (CHF 33.4 million). Nevertheless, the sector posted a slight increase of 5.5 percent compared to the same month in the previous year. The telecommunications sector recorded the largest percentage increase year-on-year with striking growth of 74.2 percent, primarily due to campaigns by Swisscom Mobile and Yallo Telekommunikation. Despite the sharp uptick, the industry is only in the bottom third of the ranking overall.

Other sectors experiencing significant growth were finance (+20.9%), media (+17.4%) and leisure, gastronomy, tourism (+8.3%).

Downward trend in 9 sectors

For the first time this year, less than half of all sectors recorded negative results.

The sectors that performed the most strongly were initiatives & campaigns and vehicles, which managed to stay in the top third of the ranking despite drops of 5.1 percent and 2.7 percent respectively.

The most pronounced percentage decline (-46.8%) was felt by the cleaning sector. Procter & Gamble and Henkel together generated more than CHF 3 million (gross) less advertising pressure than in May of last year and thus contributed significantly to this decline, especially in light of the industry’s total gross advertising volume of just CHF 5 million.

Other sectors, such as cosmetics & toiletries (-40.5%), beverages (-19.9%) and tobacco products (-27.2%), which is at the bottom of the leaderboard, also recorded significant declines.

Sector ranking

Sector ranking for May.

Top advertisers and products

The top advertisers and most advertised products and services (excluding range, image and other advertising) in May.

Media Mix

Media mix for May.

Advertising pressure in the digital market

Development of advertising pressure up to May 2025 in CHF million gross.

Sector ranking: traditional vs. digital channels in comparison

Retail is in the top three in both markets, with first place in the traditional market and second place in the digital market. The food and construction, industry, furnishings sectors round out the top trio in the traditional market. In the digital market, by contrast, the leisure, gastronomy, tourism sector leads the way, followed by retail and then finance in third place.

In both the digital and traditional markets, the beverage, cosmetics & toiletries, pharmaceuticals & health and fashion & sports sectors are positioned in the middle of the ranking.

Despite considerable year-on-year gains of 45.5 percent and 9.1 percent respectively, the tobacco and cleaning sectors are bringing up the rear in the digital market. In the traditional market, media (+17.4%), energy (-2.8%) and tobacco (-27.2%) are at the bottom of the table.

Sector ranking

Sector ranking for May.

Top digital products

The most advertised products and services (excluding range, image and other advertising) in May.

The campaign Tag der guten Tat took first place in the display sector, while booking.com was top of the search rankings and Starbucks coffee capsules were at the top of the YouTube list. Booking.com has remained the undisputed leader in search since the beginning of the year. Switzerland Tourism is at the bottom of the table for display and YouTube. The Chinese online marketplace Temu.com also appears twice – ranking sixth in search and fifth in YouTube. The tour operator TUI is listed as TUI Reisen for display and as Tui.ch for search. Furthermore, two products from the toiletries brand Nivea are also in the top 10: Nivea Sponsoring for display and Nivea Luminous 630 Body Oil Serum for YouTube.