Global ad spending in 2011 is expected to be up 5.4% to $411.7 billion according to MagnaGlobal, but the trend for the print segment of the business in the Western world is not so rosy.
The first thing to recognize is that the major growth of advertising will be in Asia—China, India and Indonesia. China and India together will account for 26% of total industry growth between 2011 and 2016. During this period, Asia-Pacific ad revenues will rise from $96 billion to $151 billion. ZenithOptimedia forecasts a 51% advertising growth for China in the next two years. By 2012, the Chinese market will be the world’s third largest, behind the U.S. and Japan but ahead of Germany. Unfortunately, growth in that part of the world will probably have very little impact on the fortunes of European and North American photographers.
TV advertising worldwide is forecast to be $169.1 billion with $125.6 billion of that for broadcast TV. Total print advertising will be $116 billion with $80.1 billion for newspapers and $35.8 billion for magazines.
Internet advertising in 2011 is expected to bring in $70.9 billion: $34.9 billion for paid search, $4.7 billion for online video, $2.7 billion for mobile and $28.6 billion for other types of Internet advertising. It is estimated that sometime in 2012 or 2013, Internet advertising will exceed advertising for newspapers, and of course, it already greatly exceeds magazine advertising. By 2016, MagnaGlobal expects total Internet advertising to be $117.5 billion, and magazine and newspaper advertising combined to be only $123 billion.
It should also be noted that a relatively small percentage of the populations of China, India and Indonesia have Internet access. Thus, a higher percentage of advertising dollars in these countries will be spent on print advertising. In the Western world, where most of the population has computer access, Internet advertising will probably exceed print advertising much more quickly than the worldwide figures would indicate.
In the next 5 years digital advertising is expected to grow by 66%. Most of that spend will not be new add-on revenue, but resources redirected from other types of advertising which in most cases will mean print.
One bright spot for photographers may be online video. MagnaGlobal expects that segment of the market to at a rate of near 20% per year for each of the next six years. At the same time mobile ad spending is forecast to grow from $2.7 billion to $6.6 billion by 2016.
ZenithOptimedia says growth in the U.S. and Western Europe is being held back by economic uncertainty—growing debt, unemployment and government spending. All of that, of course, affects consumer confidence and consequently consumer spending. The general feeling is that the pre-recession spend of 2008 still won’t be seen again for another couple of years but when that full recovery does come the likelihood is that print (paper) won’t see much of it, if any.