Guideline, powered by SMI launches its UK ad spend product, sourced from actual bookings of all major agency holding groups and several leading independent media agencies
LONDON, July 13, 2023 — The UK ad market dropped -2% in 2023 YTD (January to May), an improvement from the trends seen in 2H 2022, when the market declined -4% YoY. Digital media, which represented 55% of the share and grew +6%, was the driving force in the January-May 2023 period, with Outdoor also increasing +8%. All other media types showed YoY declines.
That’s according to new data from Guideline, powered by Standard Media Index (SMI). In conjunction with the release of this data, Guideline announced today the launch of its UK ad spend product, which captures actual media investment from all six major holding groups and the largest independent agencies within the UK, representing more than 90% of the agency market across all media: Digital, TV, Outdoor, Radio, and Print.
“With Guideline established as the single source of truth for ad spend in other key markets like the US, Canada and Australia, expanding into the UK was a top priority for our stakeholder community, from our agency partners to our international media owner and brand subscribers” said Scott Knoll, CEO at Guideline. “In partnership with the UK’s largest agencies we’re bringing much needed transparency, accuracy, and timeliness to the UK media ecosystem, helping improve how media is bought and sold in a highly fragmented and increasingly complex media market.”
Other findings in the UK ad market for the January-May 2023 period include:
- The UK market delivered a better performance than other major English-speaking markets such as North America and Oceania, which decreased -3% and -4%, respectively.
- While Linear TV dipped -16%, BVOD spend increased +7%, now representing approximately 25% of the premium video share across Linear and Digital
- Within Digital, Programmatic buying grew +13% YoY. Social was +8% up, while Search grew +2%.
- The “Apparel and Accessories” product category saw the biggest levels of growth, up 22% YoY in the January-May period, with the second highest growth category being “Automotive”, up +20% YoY.
Guideline’s ad spend solution powers deep levels of reporting granularity for both the buy and sell sides, including visibility into Publishers and Product Categories, and enabling a wide range of use cases for media owners, agencies, consulting companies, brands and financial investors as they optimize their media trading operations and drive new business.
This launch comes on the heels of the company’s acquisition of Mediaocean’s global media planning tool, Lumina, and rebrand to Guideline, which highlights the company’s role as a trusted authority in guiding advertising decisions for a majority of the world’s largest brands, agencies, and media owners.
To learn more about Guideline’s UK Spend Product, visit www.guideline.ai.
About Guideline
Formed in 2020 as a partnership between Scott Knoll, David Hahn, Michael Iantosca, and GTCR, Guideline is the world’s most trusted authority for accurate media data and collaborative planning tools to guide your advertising decisions. With the 2022 acquisitions of Standard Media Index and SQAD, as well as the more recent acquisition of Lumina in June 2023, the company offers a single source of truth for advertising spend and pricing data that provides unprecedented accuracy and transparency across the media industry as well as a powerful centralized media planning platform that delivers collaboration, efficiency and analysis across multiple global media teams and agencies in one interface. To learn more about Guideline, visit guideline.ai.
About GTCR
Founded in 1980, GTCR is a leading private equity firm that pioneered The Leaders Strategy™ – finding and partnering with management leaders in core domains to identify, acquire and build market-leading companies through organic growth and strategic acquisitions. GTCR is focused on investing in transformative growth in companies in the Business and Consumer Services, Financial Services and Technology, Healthcare and Technology, Media and Telecommunications sectors. Since its inception, GTCR has invested more than $24 billion in over 270 companies, and the firm currently manages more than $35 billion in equity capital. GTCR is based in Chicago with offices in New York and West Palm Beach, Fla. For more information, please visit www.gtcr.com. Follow us on LinkedIn.