LONDON – The latest Consensus Ad Forecast from Warc, the marketing intelligence service, indicates that expectations for global adspend growth have diminished since January, with the 3.8% rise now forecast for 2015 marking a 1.3pp reduction from the 5.1% growth anticipated at the start of the year.
Warc’s Consensus Ad Forecast is based on a weighted average of adspend predictions at current prices from ad agencies, media monitoring companies, analysts, Warc’s own team and other industry bodies.
Current sources include Carat, eMarketer, GroupM, Magna Global, Nikkei Advertising Research Institute (NARI), Pitch-Maddison, Pivotal Research Group and ZenithOptimedia.
India is expected to see the strongest annual rise in adspend this year, by 13.4%, although this marks a minor downgrade of 0.2pp from January. The US (-0.6pp), China (-2.5pp), Brazil (-1.5pp), Canada (-1.8pp), Italy (-0.3pp) and Russia (-15.0pp) have also seen their adspend outlook downgraded.
All media, barring newspapers and magazines, are predicted to record year-on-year growth in 2015, with internet expected to see the greatest adspend rise, up 17.1% after a +1.1pp revision. TV growth was cut by 1.8pp, with global TV ad revenue now forecast to rise just 0.8% this year following weaker results in the US and China.
“The latest consensus results demonstrate just how quickly economic tides can turn, especially among emerging markets. Yet despite the more challenging conditions, adspend growth is still widely anticipated this year and next, a fact which demonstrates the robust nature of the advertising industry at large,” said James McDonald, Research Analyst at Warc.
