WARC\u2019s latest Global Advertising Trends report: Ad Investment 2021\/22 – The Rate of Recovery <\/strong>has just been released. Following an analysis of adspend across 100 markets, WARC has upgraded its annual forecasts as the global ad market rebounds strongly from the COVID-19 downturn of last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n New quarterly research from 100 markets by WARC finds that advertising spend in Q2 2021 rose 23.6% to a total of US$157.6bn – a new high for a second quarter period and the strongest rise in over a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growth in the second quarter was driven mostly by online formats, which collectively saw spend rise by 31.2% versus the previous year. eCommerce (+59.5%) and search (+50.6%) were star performers, though offline media – most notably linear TV (+11.5%) – also fared well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second quarter rise in global ad trade followed on from 12.5% growth in the first quarter; consequently, at US$311.5bn, global ad investment was 17.8% higher during the first six months of the year than during the same period in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n New research, published today, lays bare the scale of the 2020 ad recession. While total spend fell by 5.4% – approximately half the rate initially estimated – spend on offline media such as print, radio, TV and cinema fell by a fifth, or US$63bn, equating to the worst downturn for this sector in WARC’s 40 years of market monitoring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spend online, however, rose by 9.4% ($29.2bn) last year, buoyed by rising eCommerce (+27.4%), social media (+18.3%) and online video (+15.9%) investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New quarterly research, collated from 100 markets worldwide, shows for the first time the true extent of the digital shift in response to the coronavirus outbreak last year. Growth in online adspend has typically tracked some 20 percentage points ahead of offline media, but in the final quarter of 2020 this leapt to a remarkable 41 points – an absolute difference of $41bn.<\/strong><\/p>James McDonald, Managing Editor, WARC Data<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Online media gained 10 percentage points in budget allocation last year in the automotive and financial categories, a rate of increase that was double the pre-pandemic average. All product sectors are allocating more of their ad budget to online formats than before the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online formats are also leading growth in 2021, with WARC forecasting spend on eCommerce advertising to rise 35.2% this year, mostly to the benefit of Amazon. Brand spend on search – where Google is the largest player – is set to rise by over a quarter (26.2%) this year, while online video spend is expected to be up by 17.7% and social media by 13.1% this year. All of these formats are expected to record growth in 2022, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Investment in offline media fell by $63bn worldwide in 2020, marking the worst year in living memory for the majority of media owners. All media are forecast to record growth this year, with most sustaining this into 2022. Yet, as has been seen before, it is the online platforms that are set to benefit most from the ad market’s recovery<\/strong>.<\/p>James McDonald, Managing Editor, WARC Data<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A sample report of WARC’s Global Ad Trends: Ad Investment 2021\/22 is available for all<\/em> here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> WARC Data<\/em><\/a> subscribers can read the report in full. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nKey findings include:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nCOVID-19 accelerated a digital shift in marketing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mediamakersmeet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Global_-Advertising-investment-forecast-by-medium-1024x576.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTrends by media and format 2021\/2022<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mediamakersmeet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Specialist-media-in-Europe-report-12.jpg\")
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