Pure-play digital media owners to enjoy 61% of overall ad revenues in 2021: GroupM

Pure-play digital media owners to enjoy 61% of overall ad revenues in 2021: GroupM

GroupM year-end report indicates TV advertising will rebound by 7.8 per cent growth in 2021

GroupM

NEW DELHI: Digital advertising will have a 66 per cent share globally by 2024, indicated the recently released global end-of-year forecast by Group M in the report - This Year Next Year. According to the report, digital advertising is expected to grow by 8.2 per cent during 2020, excluding US political activity. This follows nearly a decade of double-digit growth, including the last six years, when it was better than 20 per cent globally.

“Digital advertising for pure-play media owners like Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc, should be 61 per cent of advertising in 2021. This share has doubled since 2015 when it was only 30.6 per cent,” the report read. 

Digital extensions and related media, including advertising associated with traditional media owners’ streaming activities (primarily on connected environments), will grow 7.8 per cent this year and 23.2 per cent in 2021.

Revising its June predictions for the global advertising industry, the GroupM report has also highlighted that the industry will end up declining by “only” 5.8 per cent on an underlying basis (excluding US political advertising), in 2020. The earlier predictions had marked the decline at 11.9 per cent. However, the overall outcome still remains grim as compared to 8.7 per cent growth it had witnessed in 2019. 

Television advertising will decline by 15.1 per cent, before rebounding to grow 7.8 per cent in 2021. Outdoor advertising is estimated to decline by 31 per cent during 2020, including digital out-of-home media. Next year should see a partial rebound, with 18 per cent growth.

“Beyond 2021, we expect outdoor advertising to grow by low- or mid-single digits and generally lose share of total advertising; however, we do expect larger brands generally to allocate more of their budgets to the medium,” it stated. 

Cinema generated less than $3 billion during 2019 and likely fell more than 75 per cent during 2020 given the absence of major studio releases in most markets around the world.

Print advertising, including newspapers and magazines, is expected to decline 5 per cent for the year, a significant acceleration over the high-single-digit declines of recent years. However, those single-digital declines should resume following an economic recovery.

Audio advertising is likely to decline by 24 per cent during 2020 as advertisers disinvest, in part, because of the medium’s dependence on away-from-home activities, such as driving. Digital extensions, including streaming services from terrestrial stations and their digitally-oriented competitors and podcasts, still attract relatively small audiences of a few billion, but help make the broader medium more appealing to marketers.