Growth in global advertising spend forecast to slow to 4.2% in 2017
The latest ad forecast to be published by marketing intelligence service, Warc, has taken a pessimistic turn amidst an expectation that global advertising spend will dip to 4.2% next year from 4.5% this year.
In the UK the slowdown is expected to be even more prominent with growth of 5.6% in 2016 expected to drop to 4.3% in 2017 although this would still rank the country in the top five performing nations and above the global average of 4.2% - despite Brexit jitters.
Ad budgets have come under growing scrutiny in recent months on the back of political uncertainty with some worrying that the apparent serenity of the industry at present may be the calm before the coming storm.
Early indications in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote suggested that marketers were pulling or pausing advertising spend. Another downside risk is a concern amongst some brands that they may have over-invested in digital; an issue raised by RBS chief marketing officer David Wheldon and WPP'ssir Martin Sorrell amonsgt others.
James McDonald, Warc’s senior research analyst remarked: "The latest consensus results present a positive outlook for advertising investment at both a global and local level. All 13 markets studied are expected to record adspend growth in the short term, and this despite their contrasting socio-economic environments.
"We have identified a common trend among more mature markets whereby increasing investment in internet - particularly mobile - ad formats is driving headline growth. Applying consensus trends to Warc's adspend data shows that mobile will grow to be the world's third-largest ad channel by the end of 2016."
India, China and Russia are expected to lead the global pack for ad spend growth in 2017 with increases of 13.4%, 7.1% and 6.1% respectively.
Warc attributes resilience in native and online video for the UK's relatively strong showing.