GroupM: Global Ad Spending to Exceed Pre-Crisis Peak Next Year

LONDON/NEW YORK: In its biannual This Year, Next Year report, GroupM forecasts that global advertising investments in 2015 will reach $560 billion, finally exceeding the pre-crisis peak of 2007-08.

The U.S. still accounts for a quarter of global ad dollars, with a moderate 3.4 percent growth rate this year to $162 billion. Second-place China is excelling at a faster rate, expecting 9.8 percent growth to $76 billion. Nigeria, Kenya and Vietnam are also growing.

“Many companies are still operating with very strong balance sheets,” said Dominic Proctor, the president of GroupM Global. “Coupled with a rising general confidence and a specific comfort around digital marketing, though notwithstanding some geopolitical uncertainty, we are seeing an uplift in some of the ‘older economies’ as well as the new.”

Adam Smith, the editor of the This Year, Next Year report, stated, “Despite the slowdown in China's general economy from 2012, its consumer economy continues to expand. This, plus intensive digitization of advertising, keeps China ad investment rising at or near double-digits, with no large print legacy to correct.”

In Western Europe, where 73 percent of the regional economy is in the Eurozone, demand remains suppressed by debt, internal imbalances and deflationary politics. The Eurozone remains 20 percent below its 2007 advertising peak, and the hardest hit "periphery" of Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Portugal, 47 percent below the peak.

Smith added, “Western Europe, however, is the most-digitized ad region in the world; though this may finally be maturing to judge by digital ad investment growth slowing from double- to high-single digits in 2014 and 2015.”