Advertising Expenditure Almost £19 Billion In 2005
Advertising expenditure in the UK rose by 2.6% to nearly £19 billion in 2005 when measured at current prices (i.e. before accounting for inflation), according to newly released figures from the World Advertising Research Center (WARC) on behalf of the Advertising Association (AA).
After adjusting for inflation the rise means a 0.6% increase in real terms and represents the fourth consecutive year of positive growth since the advertising recession of 2001. 2004’s figure for total advertising expenditure stood at just under £18.5 billion, which includes production costs as well as media spend.
The largest share of advertising expenditure went on the press sector with 45.3% of spend in the UK. Television took second place (25.4%), with direct mail in third (12.5%), followed by internet (7.2%), outdoor (5.5%), radio (3.1%) and cinema (1%).
In display advertising, television was the largest medium with a 35.2% share of expenditure, followed by press (31.8%), direct mail (17.3%), outdoor (7.6%), internet (2.5%) and cinema (1.4%).
The figures also showed that in the press sector as a whole advertising expenditure declined by 1.8% in 2005 when measured at current prices (3.7% in real terms). National newspapers, regional newspapers and business magazines all suffered from decreased levels of advertising spend following strong growth in 2004, whilst spending in directories rose by 5.3% in 2005, amounting to £1,131 million when measured at current prices. Consumer magazines were also up with a rise of 1% to £827 million.
Advertising expenditure in the television sector grew by 3.6% in 2005, amounting to £4,820 million when measured at current prices (a rise of 1.5% in real terms), whilst spend in the outdoor and transport sector increased by 5.8% (3.7% in real terms) to reach £ 1,043 million. Outdoor and transport and television both achieved double-digit growth in the first quarter of 2005. The largest growth in percentage terms in 2005 was made by the internet, which rose by 65.6% when measured at current prices (62.3% in real terms) to reach £1,366 million, up from a revised figure for 2004 of £825 million.
Figures recently released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), showed that overall internet advertising revenues totalled $12.5 billion in 2005 (see Online Aspend Hits $12.5 Billion In 2005).
Advertising spend in the cinema and radio sectors fell by 2.1% and 4.5% respectively in 2005 when measured at current prices (4.1% and 6.4% in real terms) following growth in 2004, and expenditure on direct mail also fell (by 3.9%) over the course of 2005 as a whole, although it did experience positive growth in the final quarter of the year.
World Advertising Research Center www.warc.com The Advertising Association: www.adassoc.com