The UK advertising market is set to increase to £21.8 billion in 2019, up from £20.5 billion in 2018, according to the latest media and marketing report from GroupM. GroupM has also forecast 6.1% growth in total advertising spend this year, down from 7.8% in 2018 despite the economic uncertainties around Brexit.
According to the report, the digital advertising market accounts for more than 60% of total UK advertising – more than half of which is search – and is still growing at a double-digit pace, with 11% growth predicted for 2019 alone. However, in comparison, the likes of Google and Facebook are roughly around three-quarters of this figure on a gross basis.
Among other channels, television has sustained its scale in terms of advertising revenue with spending unchanged last year (£4.5 billion) and looks set to remain at that level for 2019 and 2020, accounting for around 20% of media investment.
Out-of-home accounted for half of the spending during 2018 with further shares to come due to increase usage of automation and emergence of performance-based targeting and data-driven trading. GroupM forecasts growth exceeding 3% in 2019 and 2020. Meanwhile, ad spend on radio is expected to grow closer to 2% next year.
Elsewhere, newspapers and magazines now account for less than 10% of media investment on a combined basis in 2019 and beyond, down from more than 50% as recently as 2004.
“Despite all of the political uncertainty which might have depressed economic activity, overall advertising growth is expected to be reasonably strong in the UK,” said Brian Wieser, global president, business intelligence at GroupM.
From these findings, it is looking likely that 2019 is going to be another strong year for advertising spend, despite the Brexit concerns and economic uncertainties that have emerged in the last 12 months. The report concludes that planning for Brexit contingencies is occupying management bandwidth, which is affecting ad-budget setting, and could potentially lead to reductions in the coming months