The UK advertising industry appears to be entering a period of rude health after being tipped to grow at the fastest pace in years.
Although forecasts from the Advertising Association and Warc have been downgraded to take into account reduced spend from Eurozone economies, they still predict growth of 5.7% for the UK ad market in 2015.
Coupled with predicted growth of 5.8% for 2014, which is still being assessed, these year-on-year rises would result in what the groups describe as the strongest consecutive growth for ad spend seen this century.
However, cautions over a lack of growth for Britain’s own economy have caused the rate of expansion for 2014 to slip from an original 6.4%, and the report warns that ad firms would not be immune to financial pressures felt by other sectors.
Ads go online
Considered one of the strongest indicators of growth for the ad industry, data from the Advertising Association and Warc show UK ad spend growing at a year-on-year rate of 4.2% over Q3 2014 as money allocated to various promotional activities totalled £4.3 billion.
Online ad channels welcomed a huge rise in spend over Q3 last year, expanding 13.1% after showcasing year-on-year growth of 17.2% in Q2. As marketers increased their spend on digital advertising, this had an impact on spend allocated to some of the more traditional methods of reaching out to consumers.
Magazines, for example, saw a 2.8% drop in ad revenue from Q3, brought down by spend on print titles dropping at a rate of 5.8%. Digital magazines, meanwhile, saw a 5.1% rise in ad spend, but concerns will have mounted over this only reeling in £79 million worth of revenue, compared to print’s £186 million.
The report went on to back healthy year-on-year growth for ad revenue from cinemas (10.9%), regional newsbrands with digital publications (17%) and TV (5.5%). Mobile online advertising is also set to lead growth in ad spend during 2015 by rising 44.7% year on year.
Presenting an assessment of the past, present and future, here are the forecasts in full.
