Outdoor ad industry set for growth

The outdoor advertising sector is expected to grow at 5% globally in 2020. The data is from Zenith’s ‘Advertising Expenditure Forecasts’ published today and which flags up that while internet advertising will account for 52% of global advertising expenditure in 2021 - exceeding the 50% mark for the first time - the growth rate is falling rapidly.

Internet ad spend grew 17% in 2018, but activity in the first half of 2019 suggests only a 12% growth for the year as a whole. By 2021 internet ad spend growth is expected to have fallen to 9% year-on-year. According to Zenith, much of the growth in internet ad spend is coming from small, local businesses that spend all their budgets on platforms like Google and Facebook, skewing the overall picture. It said large advertisers - on average - devote considerably less than half their budgets to it and that big brands, while investing large sums in internet advertising, are spending most of their budget in traditional media. The biggest growth in ad spend is expected to be cinema - currently accounting for just 0.8% of total ad spend but growing at 12% a year, thanks mainly to a boom in the popularity of cinema in China.