Zenith - Ad spend to grow 8% for Australia in 2021

Chris Pash
By Chris Pash | 7 December 2020
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Zenith forecasts 8% growth in ad spend in Australia next year, with a return to 2019 levels in 2022. 

And the estimated decline in ad spend in 2020 is 12%, according to Zenith’s Advertising Expenditure Forecasts. 

“By 2022, we anticipate the overall market being back to 2019 levels, although this will vary by channel and will be largely driven by digital revenues,” says Zenith.

BVOD will continue to see exponential growth and will account for 10% of TV network revenue by 2022, although it will not make up the losses linear TV experienced in 2019.

Cinema and OOH (out-of-home), the channels directly impacted by COVID-19 restrictions, will see double-digit increases next year, as will linear radio.

However, ad spend in these three channels may not fully return to pre-COVID levels until 2023.

“We’re expecting that the New Year will start showing growth across most media, as the market starts to claw back on this year’s losses,” says Elizabeth Baker, Zenith Australia’s national head of investment.

“However, we don’t expect the 2020 drop to be fully mitigated before 2022 at best.

“Digital investment will lead the growth, with consumption accelerated throughout this pandemic.” 

Zenith has adjusted its global forecasts made earlier in the year, presenting a better than expected 2020. 

The global ad market has recovered more rapidly than expected from the severe slump in the June caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Zenith now forecasts the global ad market to shrink by 7.5% to US$587 billion across 2020 as a whole. 

This is a marked improvement on Zenith’s forecast of a 9.1% decline in July. 

Zenith predicts that global ads pend will grow by 5.6% to US$620bn in 2021, boosted by the favourable comparison with 2020, as well as the delayed Summer Olympics and UEFA Euro football tournament. 

Despite this bump, spending will remain below the US$634bn spent in 2019.  

In 2022, adspend will grow by 5.2% to reach US$652bn, exceeding 2019 by US$18bn, though it will be about US$70bn lower than it would have been if it had remained on its pre-pandemic track. 

Zenith predicts that global digital ad spend will rise 1.4% in 2020, and increase its share of total ad spend to 52%, up from 48% in 2019. 

The pandemic has forced brands to step up their digital transformation, as ecommerce has proved a vital tool for maintaining relationships with existing customers, mitigating the loss of in-store sales, and even finding new customers.

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