2013 Global Ad Spend Gains Driven by Digital & Latin American Growth as Europe Falters

Gains in global ad spend in the first half od 2013 are driven by online display advertising and growth in Asia-Pacific and Latin America, according to a new Nielsen report.

Global advertising expenditures have seen robust growth in the first half of 2013, compared to a year ago.  Despite the continued effects of the European economic crisis and a 6 percent decrease in spend there, Latin America saw an impressive upswing at 13.1 percent.

In addition, marketers poured money into online display advertising, which grew 26.6 percent over the first half of 2012.

Global Ad Spend Up 2.8 Percent Over First Half of 2012

Overall, global ad spend grew 3.5 percent for Q2 2013 and for the January to June period, was up 2.8 percent over the same period a year prior. Ad spend is expected to reach $160.7 billion in the second half this year, according to the Nielsen’s latest Global Adview Pulse Lite.

regionsnielsen2013

Europe wasn’t a total loss, as marketers in Norway, Switzerland and Greece increased their budgets by 2.5, 0.6 and 7.4 percent, respectively. However, all other countries in the region reduced their ad spend in the first half of this year, indicative of caution amidst continuing economic uncertainty.

Latin America and Asia-Pacific fared far better. At 13.1 percent, Latin America attracted a large share of advertising investments, fueled by 30 percent growth in ad spend in Argentina.

Asia-Pacific experienced nearly six percent growth, with Indonesia, China and the Phillipines all showing double-digit increases in spend. By contrast, North America saw less than four percent growth, despite the momentum in the U.S. advertising market.

Asia-Pacific and Latin America Drive Online Display Ads Growth

Neilsen reports that traditional media formats television, newspapers, magazines and radio still attract most advertising dollars, though they note that they are measuring online advertising in a smaller subset of companies.

nielsen

Asia-Pacific and Latin America drove growth in online display ad spend, with YoY gains of 43 and 38.5 percent, respectively.

Next to online display, outdoor advertising saw the greatest gains at 5 percent, followed by 4.2 growth in television advertising. Radio, magazine, newspaper and cinema advertising all lost market share in varying degrees, with cinema advertising faring the worst and falling 5.9 percent globally.

Television remains the most favored means of communication with customers, Nielsen reported, with 57.6 share of spend.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods Lead in Spend Share and YoY Growth

As far as industries fared, Industry & Services and FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) saw the greatest growth in global ad spend at 7.2 and 5.7 percent, respectively. Automotive advertising fell internationally, but especially in Asia-Pacific, where it was down 9.8 percent in the first half of 2013. The Middle East and Africa saw double-digit increases in automotive advertising spend, though it wasn’t enough to make up for the Asia-Pacific losses, leaving an overall global decline of 3.1 percent.

In 2013 to date, FMCG accounts for the lion’s share of the global advertising market, with a 21.3 percent share of spend. Other leading industries are:

  • Entertainment at 13 percent
  • Industry & Services at 11.3 percent
  • Automotive at 9.2 percent
  • Media at 8.9 percent
  • Healthcare at 7.5 percent
  • Financial with 6.3 percent

Clothing & Accessories, Entertainment, Financial and Automotive all showed declines in ad spend.

Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, L’Oreal Top Global Ad Spenders 

Neilsen also tracks spend by major advertisers and released a Top 20 list of the world’s most prolific investors in advertising, including:

  • Proctor & Gamble
  • Unilever
  • L’Oreal
  • Ford Motor Company
  • General Motors
  • Toyota
  • McDonald’s
  • AT&T
  • Volkswagen Group

According to Nielsen, their Global AdView Pulse measures ad spending for TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, outdoor, cinema and Internet display advertising, based mainly on published rate-cards. They also collect external data from over a dozen external sources. For more insights, download the full version from Nielsen website.

Miranda Miller contributed to this article.

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