The global ad market has recovered more rapidly than expected from the severe slump in Q2 caused by the coronavirus pandemic and is now forecast to shrink by 7.5 per cent to $587bn across 2020 as a whole, according to Zenith’s Advertising Expenditure Forecasts. This is a marked improvement on Zenith’s forecast of a 9.1 per cent decline in July. Zenith predicts that global ad-spend will grow by 5.6 per cent to $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 $634bn spent in 2019. In 2022, ad-spend will grow by 5.2 per cent 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. These forecasts assume that the global economy will start a sustained recovery as COVID-19 vaccines are introduced in 2021, and are subject to the wide uncertainty over how rapid this recovery will be.
