GLOBAL – NEW YORK: WPP group’s media investment subsidiary has revised its global ad spending growth for global advertising spend in 2012 from 6.2% to 5.1%.
The revised spending forecast was made in GroupM’s biannual worldwide report, “This Year, Next Year,” which also said that 2011 advertising spending in measured media hit $482 billion, a 5 percent increase over 2010 spending of $459 billion.
The 70-country forecast also predicted that global ad spending in 2013 will increase 5.3 percent compared to 2012, representing $533.2 billion.
For the U.S. market, the report predicted advertising investment in measured media to grow 3.6 percent in 2012 for a total of $152.5 billion, down from 4 percent growth projected in the previous report, issued in December 2011. For 2013, the new report predicted a 3.1 percent increase, representing a total of $157.2 billion in spending.
“We attribute the decline in U.S. ad spending to a number of factors, including a loss of economic momentum, the global deterioration from all continents but particularly the Eurozone and political and fiscal uncertainty at home for the election and beyond,” said GroupM Chief Investment Officer Rino Scanzoni.
Ad investment in the Eurozone periphery (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) fell 6.0 percent in 2011 and is expected to fall a further 8.8 percent in 2012 before stabilizing at par in 2013, according to the report. GroupM Futures Director Adam Smith indicated this prediction “assumes an orderly normalization of the Eurozone.”
The report also forecasted that growth in measured digital media investment globally would be stronger than anticipated, increasing an anticipated 18 percent in 2012 to $99 billion, compared to a previous 16 percent forecast. The figure represents a 20 percent share of the 2012 measured ad spend.
For 2013, the report forecast a 22 percent spending hike; Smith said all digital spending trends are positive everywhere irrespective of local economic conditions.
“Internet advertising is growing in every country, so powerful is its structural and evolutionary development,” Smith said.
