ZenithOptimedia upgrades ad forecast for first time in 18 months
ZenithOptimedia has upgraded its 2010 advertising forecast for the first time in 18 months and predicts a return to normal 5% growth in 2012.
While it estimates that global ad expenditure will drop 10.2% over the course of 2009, it has raised its forecasts for growth in 2010 by 0.4 percentage points to 0.9%.
This is Zenith’s first upgrade to 2010 since publishing forecasts in June 2008, just before the full extent of the financial crisis became clear and the advertising downturn began.
Recovery is expected to strengthen steadily as corporate and consumer confidence continue to improve, with 3.9% growth predicted in 2011 and 4.8% growth in 2012.
Looking at the regions in 2010, adspend is forecast to shrink 2.4% in North America, 0.5% in Western Europe and 3.2% in Japan, before mild growth returns in 2011, while growth is expected in in Asia Pacific (8.4%), Latin America (8.1%), Central & Eastern Europe (2.3%) and the rest of the world (7.0%).
Last week, GroupM released a revised adspend forecast predicting that UK spend will fall by 12% year on year in 2009.
| Major media (newspapers, magazines, television, radio, cinema, outdoor, internet) US$ million, current prices. Currency conversion at 2008 average rates. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |
| North America | 179,763 | 156,973 | 153,277 | 155,814 | 160,383 |
| Western Europe | 121,039 | 106,774 | 106,193 | 109,117 | 112,748 |
| Asia Pacific | 107,332 | 103,956 | 107,897 | 113,644 | 120,543 |
| Central & Eastern Europe | 35,166 | 27,528 | 28,158 | 30,393 | 33,267 |
| Latin America | 30,405 | 30,485 | 32,968 | 35,081 | 37,597 |
| Africa/M. East/ROW | 20,284 | 17,988 | 19,240 | 21,003 | 22,822 |
| World | 493,988 | 443,704 | 447,734 | 465,052 | 487,360 |
Internet advertising is forecast to grow 9.5% this year, followed by 12% to 13% annual growth over the next three years. In 2012 we expect the internet to attract 16.2% of all ad expenditure. The gap between the internet and newspapers has narrowed from 26 percentage points five years ago to 11 this year, and Zenith predicts it will be just four percentage points in 2012.
The internet is also expected to overtake newspapers to become the world’s second-largest advertising medium by half way through the next decade.