GroupM forecasts global ad spending to surpass $500 billion in 2011

Revised Report Also Reveals Significant Uptick In 2010 Expenditures

NEW YORK — Global advertising spending in measured media is expected to exceed $500 billion for the first time ever next year following an economic recovery that also sparked significant ad spending increases in 2010, according to a revised report from GroupM.

Also, in another first, the report revealed that digital media outlets are challenging newspapers as the world’s number-two preferred medium (behind television) in measured advertising investment.

The 70-country forecast predicted that worldwide ad spending in 2011 will reach almost $502 billion, a 5.8 percent increase over 2010 spending of $474 billion. In the U.S. 2011 spending is expected to hit $147.7 billion, a 3.7 percent increase over the $142.5 billion invested in 2010.

The study, entitled “This Year, Next Year,” also reported that worldwide, 2010 ad spending is expected to increase 5.9 percent over the $448 billion spent in 2009; in the U.S., 2010 spending increased 1.2 percent over 2009, when almost $141 billion in ad expenditures was reported.

The study is part of GroupM’s media and marketing forecasting series drawn from data supplied by parent company WPP’s worldwide resources in advertising, public relations, market research, and specialist communications. It was released today by GroupM Futures Director Adam Smith and GroupM Chief Investment Officer Rino Scanzoni at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference.

“We’ve seen a significant rebound in advertising spending in the U.S over the last six months,” said Scanzoni. “Television and online media have been the primary beneficiaries of the rebound in spending. In television, the growth is driven by local TV as political advertising—coupled with the resurgence in growth from the retail and auto categories—has risen from the historically depressed levels of 2009.”

Scanzoni added that moderately accelerated growth is anticipated in 2011 as corporations with significant cash reserves deploy investment in marketing and advertising to drive top-line growth.

Measured global advertising has recovered nearly all the dollars lost in 2009, according to the report, which also said the recovery has been broad-based with spending increases reported in categories including toiletries and cosmetics, automotive, beverages, retail, financial services, entertainment, and food, among others.

Significantly, the report said measured internet advertising is expected to contribute 37 percent of global ad growth in 2011 and is likely to reach $82 billion, a growth rate that suggests it will overtake newspaper spending (forecast at $90 billion in 2011) at some point in 2012.

“Internet spending may indeed already have eclipsed newspapers if one allows that measured internet ad investment does not include substantial advertiser investment in content creation, search-engine optimization and analysis,” commented Smith.

Nations expected to contribute the largest dollar amounts in 2011 ad spending growth are the U.S. and China, each with at least $5 billion, followed by Canada, Russia, Indonesia, India, Brazil and Japan, each expected to add $1 billion-plus in spending growth.

The full “This Year, Next Year” worldwide report is now available upon request. For copies, please notify the media contacts listed below.


ABOUT GROUPM
GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation. It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare. Our primary purpose is to maximize the performance of WPP’s media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our stakeholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance-enhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation, and new communication services, to bring competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.