Advertising spending plummets

Global advertising spend is projected to fall by 10.2 percent, to $557.3 billion this year, led by sharp cuts in investment among the automotive, retail, and travel and tourism sectors as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a new report.

WARC, the global marketing intelligence service, analyzed the data on 100 markets worldwide in its Global Advertising Trends report. It found $63 billion had been removed from the market worldwide in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic and a recovery that could take at least two years.

The research suggested that an anticipated 6.7 percent rise during 2021 would only be enough to recoup 59 percent of 2020's losses, and the advertising market would need to grow by 4.4 percent in 2022 to match 2019's peak of $620.6 billion.

Traditional media endured the worst year on record in 2020 and accounted for the vast majority of the advertising market decline.

Globally, spend was down by a fifth (19.7 percent), or $62.4 billion, to a total of $253.9 billion, with live TV (16.1 percent down and with a drop in revenue of $29.9 billion) seeing the largest absolute decline to advertising income.

Cinema fell 46.5 percent, a drop of $1.5 billion; out-of-home fell 7.3 percent, a drop of $11.3 billion; newspapers plummeted 25.5 percent, a drop of $9.8 billion; magazines lost 25.4 percent, some $4 billion; and radio dropped 18.4 percent, a loss of $5.9 billion. All sectors recorded their worst performance in WARC's 40-year history of market monitoring.

The online advertising market, which had 54.4 percent of this year's advertising spending, was fl at with only a 0.3 percent fall and total spending of $303.3 billion. It was the first year that online advertising has not seen a growth in advertising spending since 2000.

Online video was the only ad format to have its prospects upgraded in the latest forecast. Viewing leaped this year as nations imposed stay-at-home orders to quell the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, and advertising spending was on course to rise by 7.9 percent, to $52.7 billion, in the sector this year, and a further 12.8 percent in 2021.

James McDonald, head of data content at WARC, and author of the report, said:"2020 was the most hostile year for the advertising economy ever seen in our 40 years of market monitoring. Some platforms, such as e-commerce and social properties, have emerged from this year relatively unscathed, but the vast majority of the media landscape has witnessed a severe material impact."

McDonald pointed out an immediate bounce back is not on the horizon, but said growth is likely in most corners of the industry next year.

"This will be more reflective of a tumultuous 2020 than a sterling 2021," he said. "Rising unemployment is set to depress consumption demand well into next year, and though the prospect of a vaccination program offers cause for optimism among consumers and businesses, it may only be a waypoint in a recovery that stretches two years."

The automotive sector leads 2020 losses, with advertising spending down by a fifth (21.2 percent), or $11.0 billion, to $41 billion this year. The sector is responsible for almost one in five (17.4 percent) of the lost dollars. The retail sector also curbed spending dramatically; a total of $54.3 billion was 16.2 percent ($10.5 billion) lower than it was in 2019, the report found.

The travel and tourism sector was acutely impacted by the global pandemic and this has resulted in ad spend falling by more than a third (33.8 percent, or $8.4 billion), to $16.4 billion in 2020.

But the study indicated all product categories are set to increase advertising investment next year, with travel and tourism, which are expected to rise by 19.5 percent, leading the growth. Only three sectors－telecoms and utilities, media and publishing, and business and industrial－are predicted to improve on the 2019 total in 2021.