Don’t forget to count ad spending among the many forces that make the world go around. And if you feel that you are seeing ever more pop-ups and pop-unders and banners and towers when you go online, you’re probably right. ZenithOptimedia has published a new report showing that in 57 countries the ratio of advertising expenditure in all media comprises 0.99% of all economic output. The report further forecasts that figure to hold steady for the next couple of years, and projects an steady, global rise in ad expenditures for new media, primarily the Internet.
Ad-to-GDP ratios are up to healthy rates in Europe, to an overall rate of 0.80%. Although the United States continues to have the largest ad expenditures in the world by far—at $167.8 billion for 2004, up 6% from 2002— in 2004 Europe showed an increase of 4.7% from its 2002 rate, with total expenditures of $93.3 billion. The Asia-Pacific region showed an increase of 7.3% from 2002, to a level of $74.8 billion in spending on ads. Latin America displayed the same rate of increase as Europe, 4.7%, but for a much more modest total of $14.7 billion. The rest of the world combined spent only $22.5 billion on ads.
Though traditional print media continue to account for most ad spending worldwide, their share of expenditures is declining: newspapers 29.9% of the market in 2004, down from 30.6% in 2002; magazines 13.5% in 2004, down from 13.9% in 2002. Radio ad spending has also declined, to 8.8% in 2004, from 9.0% in 2002. TV ads accounted for 37.5% of total world ad spending in 2004, up from 37.1% two years earlier. The emerging market of Internet advertising, however, has continued to increase, from 2.9% of total sales in 2002, to 3.5% in 2004, to a projected 4.0% in 2006.