TV ads strong in 2014, weaker than expected in 2015

Media agency ZenithOptimedia is forecasting that global ad expenditure will grow 4.9% in 2015, reaching US$545 billion, but has revised its 2015 projections downwards, citing a widespread decline in advertiser confidence.

The small downward revisions are, Zenith said, caused by the negative effect on confidence that the crisis in Ukraine has had, as well as weak economic growth in parts of the Eurozone.

In terms of the world’s largest ad markets, across all sectors, China overtook Japan to become the world’s second‐largest ad market in 2014. Zenith said there will be more changes in the top-ten ad markets over the next three years, with the UK overtaking Germany to take fourth place, and South Korea to leapfrog over Australia and France to take seventh place.

The top five global ad markets in 2014 are, in order: the US, China, Japan, Germany and the UK.

Looking at the Eurozone, Zenith said: “For the last few years the ad markets at the periphery of the Eurozone have been by far the worst performing in Europe. Between 2007 and 2013, adspend fell 28% in Italy, 41% in Ireland, 43% in Portugal, 47% in Spain and 62% in Greece. Over this period the Eurozone’s core markets remained stable: adspend shrank by just 2% in France and by 3% in Germany.”

TV continues to be the dominant medium for advertising, accounting for 40% of the global total. However, its share has, Zenith says, peaked, and will drop off slightly in the next three years. Different forms of online advertsing will take greater share including online video.

“Marketers are beginning to move small budgets away from television to online video, which we expect to grow from 1.9% of global adspend in 2014 to 2.8% in 2017,” Zenith noted.