Tag: Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report

  • Global ad expenditure to grow 8% in 2022: Zenith’s Report

    Global ad expenditure to grow 8% in 2022: Zenith’s Report

    Mumbai: Global advertising expenditure is expected to grow 8 per cent in 2022, according to Zenith’s latest Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report, which was released on Wednesday. This represents a minor downgrade from a little over 9 per cent growth rate provided by Zenith in December 2021. 

    The Winter Olympics, the mid-term US elections, and the soccer World Cup, which will be held for the first time in the most advertising-intensive period of the year, the run-up to Christmas, will all help to boost growth. Faced with this difficult comparison, the growth will slow down to 5.4 per cent in 2023, before the Summer Olympics and US presidential elections help boost it to 7.6 per cent in 2024.

    Zenith’s forecasts for North America, MENA and Western Europe this year are unchanged at 12 per cent, 7 per cent and 6 per cent growth respectively. Latin America was downgraded slightly from 9 per cent to 8 per cent, but the Asia Pacific was upgraded from 6 per cent to 7 per cent, thanks to a very strong performance from India. 

    Severe disruption in Russia and its closest trading partners after the invasion of Ukraine will lead to a 26 per cent decline in ad spend in Central & Eastern Europe, even though most other markets in the region will continue to grow.

    Ad spend has remained on track despite the macroeconomic headwinds that emerged this year. High inflation, concentrated in essentials like heating, petrol, and food, is forcing consumers to reprioritise their spending, particularly the less well-off, and has led to a drop in consumer confidence. 

    But for now, consumer spending continues to grow, as consumers demonstrate their strong appetite for the travel and entertainment experiences that were denied to them over the pandemic. Business confidence is generally high, corporate investment is rising, and there is little evidence of widespread cost-cutting.

    India to lead growth with 21 per cent expansion this year

    Global ad spend is expected to increase by $58 billion in 2022, rising to $781 billion from $723 billion in 2021. Most of the new ad dollars will come from the US, which is forecast to expand by $33 billion in 2022, driven by continued, rapid digital transformation, accounting for 57 per cent of all the money added to the ad market this year. 

    China, Japan, and the UK come next, supplying 9.1 per cent, 6.2 per cent, and 5.8 per cent of new ad dollars, respectively. India is in fifth place, accounting for 4.6 per cent of the growth in ad spend this year, even though it is only the 12th largest ad market. India will be the fastest-growing market in percentage terms, expanding by 20.8 per cent, driven by election advertising and the resumption of festivals that were cancelled at the height of the pandemic.

    Zenith India chief executive officer Jai Lala said, “India continues to have a robust adex growth on the back of digital and TV. Key categories continue to be led by FMCG and the new app-based clients in the area of fintech, edutech, food tech amongst others.”

    Higher prices in traditional channels accelerate shift to digital alternatives

    The sustained growth in demand from advertisers is pushing up media inflation, particularly in television, where the supply of audiences is falling steadily as viewers switch to alternatives. Price rises vary widely for different audiences in different countries, but the global average cost of television advertising across all audiences is expected to rise by 11 per cent-13 per cent this year. 

    Online video prices are expected to increase by about 7 per cent, although in this case the supply of audiences is rising. Other digital channels where supply is climbing and volumes are flexible are inflating only modestly, with three per cent average price rises forecast for social media and other digital displays. 

    Out-of-home and radio prices will go up about four per cent this year, while print prices will remain stable, because demand for advertising in printed publications is falling as rapidly as readership.

    Brands that simply buy broad audiences to reach targets will not be able to avoid having to spend more to reach the same audiences. But brands that use first-party data to identify their most profitable customers, and combine it with third-party data to target their best prospects in the most efficient channels, will be able to mitigate much of the effect of media inflation. 

    The huge and growing volume of digital content consumption is making it more effective for brands to scale by aggregating digital audiences. Zenith predicts 62 per cent of ad budgets will be spent on digital media in 2022, up from 59 per cent in 2021, and that this proportion will reach 65 per cent in 2024. 

    Zenith Global Chief Strategy Officer Ben Lukawski said, “In a world where trading is becoming dominated by auctions, competitive advantage is achieved not by scale, but by data.”

    “Inflation will hit cheap reach buyers hard, but brands that make smart use of their data will manage costs and grow their business at the same time,” he added.

    Online video overtakes social media as the fastest-growing channel 

    Online video is now predicted to be the fastest-growing channel over the next three years: Zenith forecasts it will grow 15.4 per cent a year on average between 2021 and 2024, driven by the rapid development of connected TV, ad-funded video-on-demand, streaming and other video formats. 

    Connected TV is now a mainstream video platform in the US, with a higher penetration than cable TV, and is becoming established in other markets, especially in Western Europe and Asia Pacific. The introduction of cheaper ad-funded tiers by SVOD services like Netflix and Disney+ will boost growth further by providing new high-quality environments for brand communication. 

    Mixed video-on-demand models that combine subscriptions with advertising will also help online video audiences continue to grow across the world by recruiting consumers unwilling or unable to afford the growing roster of subscription-only services. Zenith expects online video ad spend to rise from $62 billion in 2021 to $95 billion in 2024.

    Online video will overtake social media, the fastest-growing channel for the previous nine years. Social media ad spend (which includes video ads in social media feeds) is still forecast to grow at an average rate of 15.1 per cent a year between 2021 and 2024, propelled by rising competition among platforms that is driving continued innovation on formats and closer integration with commerce. 

    Meta’s share of social media ad spend outside China has been falling steadily since it peaked at 89 per cent in 2019, reaching 85 per cent in 2021 as TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Pinterest gained market share. Zenith forecasts social media ad spend will rise from $153 billion in 2021 to $187 billion in 2022, when it will account for 25 per cent of expenditure on advertising across all media.

    Cinema and out-of-home will take third and fourth place among the fastest-growing media, averaging 11.9 per cent and 8 per cent annual growth between 2021 and 2024, respectively. 

    These are still recovering from the deep losses they suffered in 2020 and 2021 when cinemas were closed, and consumers were confined indoors. Cinema and out-of-home have a lot of ground to make up, however, and are taking their time to do so. Many brands that were forced to find alternatives, often digital, have found them effective, and see little need to shift their budgets back again. 

    Zenith expects cinema ad spend to reach $3.9 billion in 2024, well below its pre-pandemic level of $4.8 billion in 2019, while out-of-home will reach $45.0 billion in 2024, exceeding the $42.3 billion it achieved in 2019 for the first time.

    Linear television advertising will grow by 1.1 per cent a year on average between 2021 and 2024, from $173.6 billion to $179.2 billion, as price rises continue to compensate for loss of audiences. This ongoing decline in reach and efficiency will drive brands to digital channels, however, including online video. Television’s share of total ad spend is forecast to fall from 24.6 per cent in 2021 to 20.8 per cent in 2024, while online video’s share increases from 8.8 per cent to 11.1 per cent.

    “Online video is growing by creating new opportunities for building brand awareness, complemented by social media’s capacity for cost-effective targeting with low barriers to entry,” said Zenith Head of Forecasting Jonathan Barnard. “Online video is steadily narrowing the spending gap with television, and will be half as large as television by 2024.”

  • Global cost of TV advertising up by 5%: Zenith

    Global cost of TV advertising up by 5%: Zenith

    MUMBAI: The overall global advertising expenditure is set to grow 11.2 per cent in 2021, according to Zenith’s latest mid-year Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report, released on Monday. This rise will mainly be driven by the exceptional demand for performance-led ecommerce advertising on online video, says the report.

    In fact, the cost of television advertising is up 5 per cent this year on average, well ahead of its one per cent adspend growth rate, led by rapid recovery in ad spend and continued migration of audiences from traditional to digital channels which is fuelling substantial increases in media prices, particularly for television. The volume of audiences reached worldwide via television is, however, shrinking.

    Digital, on the other hand, is growing mainly due to rising audiences and more extensive monetisation, with online video inflation averaging seven per cent, and social media roughly flat, compared to their 26 per cent and 25 per cent respective ad-spend growth rates. Advertising expenditure will total $669 billion this year, $40 billion more than was spent before the pandemic in 2019, as per the report.

    Growth in ad spends is expected to remain robust in the medium term, with 6.9 per cent growth forecast for 2022 and 5.6 per cent for 2023.

    Social media and online video have eclipsed traditional static display, which is forecast to shrink by 15 per cent this year. Overall, Zenith expects digital advertising to grow by 19 per cent in 2021, and increase its share of total adspend to 58 per cent, up from 48 per cent in 2019 and 54 per cent in 2020.

    Most other media are enjoying growth this year, as spending rebounds from the 16 per cent drop in traditional media adspend in 2020. Cinema and out-of-home were the worst affected by COVID-related restrictions, shrinking by 72 per cent and 28 per cent respectively, and will enjoy the fastest recovery in 2021, with respective growth rates of 116 per cent and 16 per cent.

    Radio advertising, which shrank by 22 per cent in 2020, is forecast to grow by four per cent in 2021, while television fell eight per cent in 2020 and is forecast to grow one per cent in 2021. Print will continue its long decline, now in its fourteenth consecutive year, with an eight per cent drop in adspend in 2021. In 2023 adspend in all these media will still be below 2019 levels, though cinema and out-of-home will have made up almost all of their lost ground.

    Audiences continue to migrate online, and online video viewing is growing rapidly, even as traditional television ratings shrink again after a one-off spike when lockdowns began in 2020. Advertisers value online video as a means of maintaining reach while television declines, but it’s an effective form of brand communication in its own right. Demand is strong, although the popularity of subscription-funded video-on-demand has helped limit the supply of high-quality online video available to advertisers. Zenith predicts that online video advertising will be the fastest-growing digital channel in 2021, rising by 26 per cent to reach $63 billion.

    The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the structural shift in the economy from bricks-and-mortar sales to ecommerce, driving more consumers than ever to research and complete purchases online. Brands have responded by forming partnerships with retailers and creating new direct-to-consumer operations, using performance-driven advertising – primarily in social media and paid search – to lead consumers down the path to purchase. Zenith forecasts that social media advertising will expand by 25 per cent this year to reach $137 billion, overtaking paid search in scale for the first time. Paid search will expand by 19 per cent to reach $135 billion.

    Much of this is new money to the ad market, coming from small businesses that have had to pivot rapidly to ecommerce to survive lockdowns, and from budgets that brands would previously have allocated to retailers to secure physical shelf-space, which they are now spending on display and search ads on retailer websites. The shift to ecommerce will slow down as coronavirus restrictions lift and economies open up again, but won’t go into reverse. Zenith expects ecommerce to continue to pull in incremental revenues to the ad market, driving 13 per cent growth in social media and 12 per cent growth in search in 2022.

    “The online video landscape continues to transform, fuelled by the growth of streaming services and connected TVs,” said Zenith global chief digital officer Benoit Cacheux. “Its continued evolution requires a radical rethink of how to build the optimal screen-neutral reach model. The ingestion of new data sources into TV planning also creates further opportunities to further sync TV and video planning.”

    All regions will enjoy robust ad spend growth in 2021, with Asia Pacific showing a nine per cent growth.

    The US will be by far the largest contributor to global growth in 2021, accounting for 46 per cent of the $67 billion added to the global ad market this year, followed by China with 11 per cent, and Japan and the UK with six per cent each.

    “After a very tough year last year, the ad market is enjoying rapid and broad-based recovery, and will end this year well above the level it achieved in 2019,” said Zenith head of forecasting Jonathan Barnard. “Digital advertising is becoming a more effective tool for brand growth as media and commerce continue to move online, attracting greater investment from large brands and small businesses alike.”