This morning I took the newspapers out of the subscription boxes. It’s Sunday. The beginning of the week always has heavier newspapers. But today, the newspapers in my hand were noticeably hefty.
Consider today’s Al-Rai: 94 pages thick.
Six pages alone were one huge ad for Capital Bank (which is the re-branded Export and Finance Bank). Page after page of ads greeted me: financial services, telecommunication, travel, real estate. Not to forget: a load of employment ads.
Al-Ghad, was not bad either. Although smaller than Al-Rai (60 pages), the number of advertising pages in this young newspaper was impressive too.
This size of advertising expenditure must be a indicator of something. At least certain parts of the Jordanian economy seem to be doing well.
Last wednesday, I had a guest from out of town. It was a Wednesday night and I wanted to take him out for dinner. Our choice was Italian. Amazingly, we had to call 3 restaurants to find a reservation for six people. And it wasn’t even Thursday!
Restaurant reservations and the number of ads in the papers are not an accurate way to measure the overall success of an economy. But there is definitely money going around town.
Prices are going up and life in Amman is too expensive, which means that a large sector of society is feeling an economic pinch. But spending power, at least from what can be seen in Amman, seems to be moving ahead too. The situation might be confusing. Yet expect more retail outlets and more services to hit the market in the coming years.
Another interesting indicator: a UAE-based friend of mine recently told me that Jordanian companies are advertising in Dubai seeking to bring Jordanian employees back to work in Jordan!
Comments
6 responses to “Jordanian newspapers full of ads: what does it mean?”
I really hope our market will be as tempting as Dubai’s, so our people wouldn’t have to leave their country looking for a decent living….
Hopefully this spending on ads will encourage investors to put in more money in the still very limited media sector… it means that maybe at a certain point in time, we will see a larger media sector… varied views… more opportunities… much more truthfulness and depiction of the reality…
lets not forget the wealthy Iraqis and recently Lebanese who emerged along with their dollars… the city is getting worse not better, when the green cloud moves along, it will reveal the disaster it created underneath
Amman seems to be nothing like a couple of years or so ago. It is getting much bigger with a lot of people moving around and spending.
One can feel that we are doing well in economical means, hope it continues this way.
I find it interesting to hear what your friend said about some Jordanian companies advertising in Dubai in an attempt to bring back some Jordanians. Salaries are getting better here, maybe Jordan would be a better choice after all in the coming few years.
yeah but this is just amman; standard of life isn’t improving as fast in other parts of jordan, even in some other parts of amman.
oh and btw for jordanian ads and a quick laugh check out this site:
http://www.talasim.com