Ad spend on the rebound: Group M

The media agency parent co has released its worldwide media and marketing forecast report, indicating that Canada should expect almost 3% ad spend growth in 2010.

By Katie Bailey
June 28, 2010

The growth in Canadian ad spending is expected to be in line with global increases, a new report from Group M, a WPP company, indicates.

The report, titled ‘This Year, Next Year: Worldwide media and marketing forecasts,’ states that global ad spend in measured media should increase 3.5% in 2010 to $451 billion, a 2.5-point increase from previous estimates which pegged growth at 1%.

In Canada, ad spending is expected to grow by 2.9% in 2010, up to $11.7 billion from $11.4 billion in 2009. (2009’s ad spend was down 8% from 2008.) The report also predicts that growth will continue into 2011, rising to $12.2 billion, a 3.7% increase over 2010.

Ad spend share was further broken down by category, indicating that TV would grow in 2010 to 27.8% share, from 27.1% in ’09, magazines will move from 8.6% share to 8.8% and interactive would rise the most in 2010, to 16.6% share from 15.7% in 2009. Interactive was the only category expected to post continued growth in 2011. Categories losing share included radio (down 1.5%) and newspapers (down 0.3%). Cinema and OOH were predicted to remain flat in 2010 through to 2011.

In terms of year-over-year changes in spend, interactive is the best-poised going forward, with a forecasted 8.3% increase in media spend in 2010 and a 10% increase in 2011. TV, on the other hand, is expected to grow 5.6% in 2010, but return to a more normalized growth of 2.8% in 2011. Radio is predicted to take a dive this year with a 7.7% decrease, but with a 2011 rebound of 3%. Newspapers are expected to post a 2% gain in media spend for both 2010 and 2011, while consumer magazines are expected to make up lost ground from 2009 with a whopping 18.3% gain in media spend, which is expected to normalize in 2011 with a 2% gain.

The top 10 marketing categories in 2009 reflected the recessionary climate, with food, entertainment and restaurants posting gains or remaining stable, while retail, automotive, financial/insurance, travel and telecom all posted declines – the biggest drops belonging to automotive (down 11%) and telcos (down 17%). The top five advertisers of 2009, as listed in the study, were P&G at $164 million, the Government of Canada at $121 million, Rogers at $115 million, GM at $90 million and Telus at $89 million.