MUMBAI: Zenithoptimedia has revised the ad spend growth forecast down from 4.6 per cent to 4.2 per cent due to the turmoil in Middle East and the earthquake in Japan.
These events have knocked off $2.4 billion in this year’s global ad expenditure.
The immediate consequences of these events have most affected these markets: Egypt and Japan.
In Egypt – one of the largest ad market in the Middle East – there was almost no advertising on television during the revolution, and in the aftermath advertisers have been very careful about their messages, the agency stated.
Also, Japanese broadcasters replaced almost all commercial ad slots with public-service announcements for weeks after the earthquake, and blackouts and distribution problems will hinder media consumption for months to come.
The agency, however, doesn’t expect these shocks to derail the global recovery in the long term. Some of the missing advertising may reappear later in the year, followed by strong growth in these markets in 2012. Japan is forecast to shrink 4.1 per cent this year before growing 4.6 per cent next year, while Egypt follows this year’s 20 per cent drop with 12.1 per cent recovery in 2012, Zenithoptimedia concluded.
According to the quarterly forecasts, the underlying recovery remains healthy. ZenithOptimedia has upgraded its forecast for 2012 from 5.2 to 5.8 per cent. The developing markets will increase their share of global ad expenditure from 30.9 per cent in 2010 to 35.1 per cent in 2013.
The Internet will become the world’s second-largest advertising medium in 2013, overtaking newspapers.
There is strengthening in Western and Central and Eastern Europe, where advertisers are becoming more confident of the long-term economic prospects. The large disparity in growth rates between developed and developing markets continues.
The agency also forecasts North America to grow by an average of 3.1 per cent a year between 2010 and 2013 and Western Europe to grow by 3.5 per cent. It expects Japan to grow just 0.7 per cent a year, though this obscures the big drop in 2011 followed by the recovery of lost ground over the next two years.
It also predicted 0.1 per cent annual growth in the Middle East, as advertisers tread carefully amid political instability. Meanwhile, it forecasts Latin America to grow by 8.2 per cent a year, Central and Eastern Europe by 12.4 per cent, Asia Pacific by 6.6 per cent and Asia Pacific excluding Japan to grow by 10.2 per cent.
Developing markets – which are everywhere outside North America, Western Europe and Japan – will increase their share of the global ad market from 30.9 per cent in 2010 to 35.1 per cent in 2013.
There are now two ‘developing’ markets in the world’s top ten ad markets, and there will be three in 2013. China (forecast to grow at an average 13.6 per cent a year to 2013) will overtake Germany (forecast 2.4 per cent annual growth) to become the world’s third-largest ad market in 2011, and stay at that position throughout the forecast period.
China is currently just over half (54 per cent) the size of Japan, the second-largest ad market, and will be just over three-quarters (77 per cent) of its size in 2013. Brazil (with 15.4 per cent annual growth) will overtake France (with 2.9 per cent) to take sixth place in 2011. Russia (23.3 per cent growth) will rise from 12th place in 2010 to tenth in 2011, eighth in 2012, and then seventh in 2013.
However, the next five largest contributors are all developing markets: China (which contributes almost as much as the US, $10.8 billion), Russia ($6.9 billion), Brazil ($3.3 billion), India ($2.5 billion) and Indonesia ($2.4 billion).
The agency predicts that the Internet will overtake newspapers to become the world’s second-largest advertising medium in 2013. While it has long expected this to happen in the near future, this is the first time this event has fallen within its forecast period.
Newspaper ad expenditure was still 51 per cent larger than Internet ad expenditure in 2010, but newspaper expenditure is shrinking by 1.4 per cent a year, as circulations continue to fall in developed markets, and readers migrate to the Internet.
Internet advertising continues to grow at breakneck pace, at a forecast average rate of 14.4 per cent a year between 2010 and 2013.
The agency forecasts newspaper ad expenditure to fall from $95.2 billion in 2010 to $91.2 billion in 2013, while Internet ad
expenditure rises from $63 billion to $94.5 billion over the same period.
This year display advertising has taken over from search as the main driver of Internet ad growth. Display, broadly defined here to include online video and social media, has been invigorated by these fast-growing segments.
Affordable, do-it-yourself tools to create streaming video ads have opened online video to small and local advertisers. Social media sites now attract huge audiences, though click- through rates and, therefore, costs are often very low.
The agency expects global display ad expenditure to grow at an average of 16.4 per cent a year to 2013, while paid search grows by 12.8 per cent and classified by 10.2 per cent.
Television remains by far the largest medium and is continuing to increase its market share. Television attracted 40.4 per cent of global ad expenditure in 2010, up from 37.3 per cent five years earlier, and we expect it to attract 41.7 per cent in 2013.
Bigger and higher-quality displays, more channels delivered by digital television, and the convenience of PVRs mean people are watching more television than ever. zenithOptimedia forecasts television ad expenditure to rise from $180.3 billion in 2010 to $216 billion in 2013.
