Dentsu Aegis Network’s latest advertising spend forecasts, based on data from 59 markets, predicts global growth of 3.9% in 2020, amounting to US$615.4 billion and building on growth of 2.6% in 2019.
With the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, UEFA European Football Championships and the US Presidential elections all taking place in 2020, events will be a significant driver of increased ad spend around the world as advertisers look to capitalise on huge global audiences.
However, underlying trends paint a more nuanced picture. Our forecasts show declining spend in Germany (-1.5%), Italy (-0.1%) and Spain (-1.3%) while developing markets such as India are forecast double-digit growth in 2020. The forecasted decline in Germany, Italy and Spain is linked to ongoing political uncertainty and weakened economic forecasts in these markets. In India growth is driven by digital which is in part powered by booming smart phone adoption. Latin American spend is also growing rapidly driven by digital spend. In Argentina growth is forecast at 16% for 2020.
Digital continues to power ad spend growth in 2020 and is forecast to grow 10.5%, reaching US$276 billion and 45.7% of global spend. Growth remains strong into 2021 putting digital’s share of ad spend at nearly 50% at the start of the new decade. Within digital, mobile and video are fuelling growth. Both are forecast double-digit growth in 2020 at 16.5% and 14.6% respectively.
Digital is also breathing new life into traditional formats, with television and radio showing signs of recovery with a return to growth in 2020. Tv is predicted to maintain around one-third (31.5%) of global ad spend share, growing at 0.6% this year. Radio too is forecast to grow at 1.7%. Voice assistants, addressable TV and programmatic ads are driving spending in these more traditional mediums.
