Ban on cigarette ads that surfaced in recent time was apparently not discourage cigarette manufacturers to restrict the portion of its ad spending in the media.

In the first quarter during the period January to March this year, took out a cigarette category amounted to Rp 377 billion for advertising spending or increased 8 percent compared with same period last year.

This was revealed in the data Nielsen Advertising Services that perform monitoring of 103 newspaper ads, 165 magazine and tabloid, as well as 24 television stations.

“Although a lot of rules and restrictions, cigarette advertising has increased significantly in the first quarter of this year,” Ika said Jatmikasari, Associate Director, Nielsen Media Indonesia, on the sidelines of a press conference at his office, Mayapada Tower, Jakarta, Tuesday (20 / 4 / 2010). This ad spending data without calculating discounts, promotions, or discounts given by media to advertisers.

Ika explained, the category of cigarette advertising spending amounted to Rp 351 billion, up 12 percent compared with same period last year just Rp 313 billion.

Tobacco products the most widely advertise at the beginning of this year is the International Gudang Garam with advertising expenditure amounted to USD 75 billion or increased by 1775 per cent compared with last year in the same period is only USD 4 billion. On television, these products spend USD 73 billion for advertising expenditure and beat Clear Anti-Dandruff products which last year numbered advertise aggressively.

“This creativity Gudang Garam International for presenting advertisements on television without violating the rules made KPI (Indonesian Broadcasting Commission),” said Ika.