AA/WARC: 2021 Strongest Year Ever for U.K. Ad Market

The latest Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report shows a record 26.4 percent growth for the U.K.’s ad market, putting its value at an estimated £30 billion last year.

The new findings upgrade October’s forecasts for 2021 by 1.6 percentage points, equating to the strongest year in U.K. ad market history.

New forecasts point to total investment for 2022 rising by 8.5 percent to £32.2 billion, meaning the U.K. market will have expanded by more than a third since 2020. Strong recoveries are forecasted for cinema (201.1 percent) and out-of-home (26.8 percent). Continued growth is also expected from the largest advertising channels, including search (11.1 percent), online display (8.3 percent) and TV (5.3 percent).

The latest figures also suggest Q1 2022 to be stronger than expected (particularly within TV), and overall ad spend is now forecast to grow 12.6 percent year-on-year, compared with 10.5 percent previously.

Stephen Woodford, chief executive of the Advertising Association, said: “U.K. advertising has seen a remarkable recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, racing ahead of key international markets with spend expected to cross the threshold of £30 billion this year. A strong advertising market is a key indicator of the U.K. economy’s growth, with every £1 spent on advertising generating £6 GDP. The latest AA/WARC report brings welcome news not just for our industry but for the wider economy, as advertising investment is a key lever for businesses to capture new markets and drive their recovery.

“It is all the more important, therefore, that the government recognizes the need to support industry-led skills training to complement the demand for digital skills required to keep this market booming.”

James McDonald, director of data, intelligence and forecasting at WARC, said: “The latest verified data support our previous estimation that 2021 was the strongest year for the U.K.’s advertising market since monitoring began. Encouragingly, this momentum appears to have sustained into the new year, with the impact of the Omicron variant on advertising trade appearing to be reasonably muted across the majority of sectors.

“While inflation is set to act as a headwind on both consumer and media buyers alike in the coming months, we have little reason to believe that the U.K.’s ad market won’t achieve growth of 8.5 percent this year—well ahead of the average recorded during the decade preceding the outbreak.”