Carat has published its first forecast for worldwide advertising expenditure in 2017, combined with its latest forecasts for 2016 and actual figures for 2015, showing positive global outlook led by continued investment in digital spend. Based on data received from 59 markets across the Americas, Asia Pacific and EMEA, Carat’s latest global forecasts highlights that ad spend will reach $538 billion this year, accounting for a 4.5 per cent increase.
Fuelled by high-interest media events this year, including the US presidential elections, the Rio Olympics and Paralympics and the UEFA Euro championships in France, the positive outlook for 2016 is predicted to continue into 2017. Powered by the upsurge of mobile (+37.9%), online video (+34.7%) and social media (+29.8%), digital is expected to continue to grow at double digit prediction levels of 15% this year – and by another 13.6% next year.
Overall, Carat predicts the upsurge of digital to account for 27% of spend in 2016 and extend to 29.3% next year, reaching $161 billion globally. In 2015, all regions reported positive growth, from Western Europe, up 2.8%, +4.3% in North America, +3.6% in Asia Pacific and Latin America at +11%. In 2016, the North American market remains strong with a growth of +4.6%, with the upcoming presidential elections expected to generate $6 billion in spend.
Western Europe’s sustained positive recovery driven by solid growth in the UK and Spain in 2015 is expected to continue in 2016 and 2017 at +3.1%. Despite a decline in global growth forecasts due to China and Brazil’s economic volatility, Asia Pacific and Latin America advertising markets remain strong in 2016, achieving +4.4% and +10.5% growth respectively.
Carat is encouraged by the outlook for 2017 across all regions, including central and eastern Europe, as Russia’s economy now starts to stabilise. Digital continues to be the star performer globally with Hong Kong and Estonia on the list of 12 markets where digital is now the main media used. The US, Germany, Taiwan and Austria is due to join this list by 2018.
