Canada’s advertising spend growth will lag behind the global average in both 2016 and 2017, according to a new forecast from London-based marketing intelligence firm Warc.
The organization is calling for global ad spending growth to slow from 4.5% in 2016 to 4.2% next year, with Canada’s ad spend predicted to grow 2% and 2.4% respectively.
James McDonald, Warc’s senior research analyst, said the forecast indicated a “positive outlook” for advertising investment at both a local and global level, with all 13 markets tracked by the organization expected to see short-term growth.
India is the fastest growing of the 13 advertising markets tracked by Warc, with predicted growth of 13.3% this year and 13.4% in 2017.
Warc is calling for the U.S. ad market to grow 5.1% this year, largely on the basis of the presidential election and the Rio Olympics, before cooling to just 2.8% growth in 2017.
McDonald said increasing investment in the internet – particularly mobile – was driving growth in mature markets like Canada and the U.S. Warc predicted mobile would become the world’s third-largest advertising channel by the end of the year.
All major advertising media with the exception of newspapers and magazines – which are expected to see spending contract by 8% and 5.9% respectively this year – are expected to grow, with mobile leading the way with 47.1% growth this year, followed by 34.2% in 2017.
The internet as a whole is predicted to grow 14.6% this year and 13% in 2017. TV remains the world’s largest ad medium, though growth is expected to slow – from 2.8% this year to 1.1% in 2017.
Cinema is the only advertising channel expected to post year-over-year growth, with ad investment increasing 5.1% in 2017, up from 3.1% this year.
The report is based on a weighted average of ad spend predictions from agencies, media monitoring companies, analysts, Warc’s internal analysts and other industry bodies. Organization’s contributing to the most recent report include Carat, eMarketer, GroupM, Magna Global, Nikkei Advertising Research Institute, Pitch-Madison, Pivotal Research Group and ZenithOptimedia.
