66% of ad buyers cite slowing economy for reigning in spending
The IAB has taken stock of the advertising plans of brands and agencies this year amid an increasingly troubled macroeconomic climate to weigh the relative impact of sentiment v reality.
IAB busts recession talk after charting a 7% first-half uptick in ad spend of brands and agencies
The half-year study found that ad spend was up 7% over the period v planned spending. Buyers expect ad spend to be up 9% v the year prior – albeit a fall from a 13% projection made last year in the IAB’s Fall Impact Study.
Growth is patchy across different categories, however, with some sectors such as travel (27%) and tech (15%) surging far ahead of planned spending, even as health & wellness (-5%) and auto (-2%) slip into reverse. Of those on the downward tack of seesawing spending, 66% cite the slowing economy for reigning in spending, while 45% cite supply bottlenecks and 38% pin the blame on consumer inflation.
Looking further ahead to 2023, 71% of buyers fret that the US economy will come off the boil, with 84% of this pessimistic cohort expecting a negative impact on ad spending as the year gets going. Despite the gloom, buyers still expect 2023 ad spend to be up 10% on 2022 as a confluence of external factors such as the war in Ukraine conspire to slow spending rather than wrench the wheels off.
The findings are governed by an email survey sent to 250 brands and agencies between July 6-20, and dovetail with an April study showing that digital ad spend boomed 41% in 2021.