2022 Global End of the Year Forecast [REPORT]

In a world beset by economic uncertainty, advertising has been thrust into the spotlight as a sort of bellwether for Big Tech and retail commerce. Held up to that light, the narrative surrounding the health of the global advertising economy is not altogether negative. We now believe that global advertising growth for 2022 will be 6.5%, excluding U.S. political advertising. This is lower than our June forecast when we estimated 8.4% growth; however, this is primarily the effect of lowered China expectations. Ex-China, growth is forecast at 8.1% for 2022.

It’s also useful to look at advertising growth on a three-year compounded basis, essentially smoothing out the volatility of the pandemic and the general up-and-down nature of the advertising market. Despite the headlines of negativity, we estimate the three-year compound annual growth rate for total advertising from 2019-2022 is at 8.8%, nearly identical to the 8.7% rate from 2016-2019.

Here’s What’s Making Us Optimistic

  • Large declines appear limited to select channels in select markets.
  • Large advertisers are seeing revenue gains despite voicing caution.
  • Unemployment remains low and new business creation remains a source of growth.
  • Digital media continues to grow.

Looking ahead to 2023, we expect global advertising to grow 5.9%, with strong gains in connected TV, retail media and fast-growing markets like India. This figure represents a slight downgrade from the 6.4% estimate we shared in June, but barring an escalation to the war in Ukraine or another pandemic-sized global disaster, we expect growth to climb in 2024 to 6.2% before returning to a trend of decelerating mid-single-digit growth through 2027.

Some Key Facts

  • The difference between our current estimates and the June forecast can primarily be explained by changed expectations for China, which has gone from 3.3% growth to 0.6% decline, and for the U.S., where we now predict 7.1% growth (excluding political advertising) versus 10.1% in June. These two markets will make up 55.5% of all advertising revenue in 2022.
  • By 2025, all pay TV providers combined will reach fewer than half of homes in the U.S.
  • Retail media is forecast to reach $110.7 billion this year, up from our September estimate of $101 billion.
  • Google and Meta captured 42.7% of all advertising (not just digital) in 2022, excluding China.

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