Media Economy: How Far Down is Down? [Hispanic Media Flat]

On March 9, The Myers Report predicted a potential $1 billion to $3 billion loss in advertising spending in 2020 and an additional $1 billion to $3 billion in 2021 due to coronavirus (COVID-19) realities. We projected total marketing communications budgets could decline by $3 billion to $11 billion in each year. Based on the actions of the past week, we now believe the most likely budget reductions will be closer to last week’s worse-case scenario.

Overall, we’re now projecting total growth in advertising budgets will decline from +6.2 percent to +4.8 percent, with the caveat that it may get worse. Our projections are based on The Myers Report detailed analysis of 28 marketing and media categories. For each relevant category, The Myers Report collects data for both legacy/linear and digital spending.

The data below reflects a comparison of The Myers Report pre-coronavirus and post-coronavirus  forecasts for 2020 advertising and marketing investments in the 28 major categories, including both percentage and spending changes between pre- and post-coronavirus forecasts. The Myers Report is also publishing for members the full “Marketing & Media Economic Data and Forecasts 2000 to 2025” for all 62 legacy and digital categories.

Hardest hit based on percent of lost revenues is, not surprisingly, experiential and event marketing (excluding digital), which The Myers Report predicts will lose 9.6 percent of anticipated growth, representing more than $2 billion. Also hard hit are direct mail/marketing (-7.4 percent), cinema advertising (-7.2 percent), and mobile and apps advertising (-5.9 percent). Least impacted by changing business conditions are newspaper advertising (+5.7 percent comparing pre- and post-coronavirus forecasts), content marketing (+6.7 percent), public relations (+6.5 percent), broadcast network TV (+4.1 percent), and advanced TV (+2.9 percent).

Our projections do not include the potential impact of Olympics coverage cancellation or cancellation of third- and fourth-quarter sporting events. The chart below includes all advertising and promotion categories, with media advertising totals reflected at the bottom of the chart in Total Data.

About Author

Jack Myers

Media Ecologist, Founder: MediaVillage and Advancing Diversity Hall of Honors Jack Myers is a media ecologist and founder of MediaVillage, the media and advertising community’s leading resource for market intelligence, education, business connection.