Stats Roundup: The Impacts Of COVID-19 On Advertising And Marketing

Q1 2021

Dentsu’s Ad Spend Report predicts that in the UK advertising spend should expand to the second-highest rate out of every market globally in 2021. Dentsu also predicts a robust recovery within the UK ad markets and has forecasted a 10.4% year-on-year growth by the time 2021 comes to an end, and India is the only other region that is currently at the front at +10.8%. Italy, Canada, and France should also experience positive growth at around 5.9%, 7.2%, and 8.9% respectively. If you are looking for a sky adsmart agency please check this out!

While the US continues to dominate total shares of the ad spend globally (37.9%), the UK is currently ranking 4th in this sector, with a relatively modest 5.1% share, behind Japan (9.9%), and China (17.6%).

Predicting and understanding how most consumers are going to behave permanently or temporarily, is the biggest challenge that advertisers are going to face in the next year. However, many brands seem to feel confident that video, search, and social will become the largest drivers when it comes to digital growth within this area, even though the outlook globally remains uncertain for the next 6 months.

The Top-Rated Ad Agencies Have Made Modest Predictions For Expansion Of The Global Ad Market In 2021

As 2020 came to an end, Forbes collected predictions from 3 of the top advertising agencies, GroupM, Zenith, and Magna, on “potential” growth of the ad markets globally in 2021.

There seems to be somewhat of a consensus between these agencies that digital-advertising is going to increase at faster rates when compared to more traditional advertising forms. Advertising for cinema should also make a favourable comeback in 2021, as some of the regions have started to lift restrictions and roll-out vaccinations in attempts to assist with life returning to normal. With the Olympics set to take place in Tokyo, after the delays from the previous year, sports ads will also probably experience a boost.

Magna has said it suspects to see a rise of 7.6% in global advertising spend in 2021 to $612 billion in total, and that digital media should see a growth of 10.4%, while linear media will be far more modest at 3.5% (around $42 billion less when compared to 2019). It has also predicted that India will become the leader when it comes to total advertising spend growth globally, up by as much as 26.9% year-on-year.

Zenith has predicted that ad spend globally should reach $634 billion which is still under the total that was recorded in 2019, and by another 5.2% in 2022 to around $652 billion. After such a large boost due to the latest election in 2020, the US may see a relatively smaller growth in advertising spend for this year, at only 3.3%. This is in comparison to other regions such as the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America at 10 to 11%.

GroupM happened to be the most positive and optimistic when it comes to the 2021 ad market. It forecasted an increase to $651 billion, with the biggest growth rate in Latin America at 24.4% and APAC at 14.1%. From their analysis, they predict that digital media might experience a 14.1% rise to $396.8 billion, which is much higher when compared to the approximate figures that Magna provided.

The Projected UK Ad Spend Growth Has Been Revised Down For 2021

The latest data from Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report has estimated that the recovery for ad spend in the UK for the next year may be slower when compared to what was originally expected. The last estimates of a 16.6% return-to-growth within this sector throughout 2021, which was offered back in July, was therefore revised back down to 14.4%.

The ad spends overall for the year 2020 is now set to decrease 14.5% from last year to around £21.5 billion, which estimates a £3.6 billion loss when compared to 2019, with the fourth quarter period that offset a percentage of the damages due to the festive season advertising. However, the last quarter should still experience a 10.5% decrease in advertising spend when you compare it to this period in 2019.