Dentsu Forecast: All signs point to growth
Dentsu has released its Ad Spend Report and provided an outlook on the trend in net advertising spending for 2024 and the coming year. In Germany, the forecast calls for 3.3 percent growth.
Dentsu publishes its Ad Spend Report and provides an outlook on the development of net advertising investments for 2024 and the coming year. The semi-annual study is based on data from 56 markets in North and South America, Asia-Pacific and EMEA.
According to the study, global advertising investment could increase by 5.9% in 2025. This would correspond to an expected net investment sum of 817.7 billion US dollars. In retrospect, the forecast global growth for 2024 has also been revised upwards - from 5.0% to 6.8%, which corresponds to USD 772.4 billion. Major sporting and political events have had a greater impact here than initially assumed in May of this year. In addition, the outlook in the USA, the UK, Brazil and France has improved once again.
A closer look at the development for 2025 shows that the pace of growth is likely to slow somewhat, as there will be no major global events such as the UEFA European Championship and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the new year to boost investment.
Signs of growth
Nevertheless, the signs continue to point to growth and the assumed figure of 5.9% will exceed the growth rate of the global economy by 2.7 percentage points. In terms of advertising growth in the strongest regions of the global market, the American continent is once again the leader in terms of advertising expenditure (8.0% for 2024 / 6.3% for 2025). In Germany, a cautiously positive trend in advertising expenditure is emerging. The Dentsu analysts assume a figure of 3.1% for 2024. However, growth would have been significantly higher had it not been for the slump in Q4 of the current year. The conspicuously weak Q4 thus overshadows what was actually a good 2024. These could already be the first negative harbingers for 2025.
High tariffs on US imports, an already weak growth forecast for Germany and a general election with potential problems in forming a majority are causing noticeable uncertainty and restraint. In this respect, the forecast 3.3% growth in advertising expenditure in Germany is currently the best case scenario and offers a lot of hope. Looking at the forecasts for 2024 in comparison to the other major European economies, Germany is in fifth place behind the equally rising growth prospects in the UK (7.5%), France (5.6%), Italy (6.2%) and Spain (4.8%).
