Group M:Adspend prospects soften

Global adspend will rise by more than 5% this year according to GroupM, the media arm of WPP Group, although the company has revised down its projections due to financial instability in many markets.

In its latest biannual "This Year, Next Year" report, GroupM estimated worldwide advertising expenditure will increase by 5.1% in 2012, but this marked a noticeable softening from its previous forecast of a 6.3% expansion.

Translated into dollar terms, this means measured media spend will now reach $506.3bn in 2012, versus the earlier prediction of $522bn. This can be weighed up against the $482bn recorded in 2011 and $459bn in 2010.

Economic uncertainty in the United States and Europe was the largest single factor behind this reappraisal of the situation facing the ad market this year.

More specifically, investment levels in the hard-hit eurozone nations of Ireland, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal fell by 6% in 2011 and are expected to drop by an additional 8.8% in 2012.

Furthermore, although GroupM predicted a stabilisation in trading conditions for these nations in 2013, this presupposed an "orderly normalisation” of the eurozone.

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