Four trends in the advertising market in 2016

1. the global advertising market is growing significantly

Despite all the current turbulence in the global economy, the global advertising market will grow very significantly in 2016. This is according to the latest edition of the ZenithOptimedia Advertising Expenditure Forecast. ZenithOptimedia expects an increase of 4.7% for 2016. This is due to three events that will have a significant positive impact on global advertising expenditure: The US presidential elections, the Summer Olympics and the European Football Championships.

2. the Swiss advertising market is only growing slightly

In Switzerland, on the other hand, growth will be much more modest with an increase of 1.1%. "In our market, we are still feeling the pressure caused by the appreciation of the already strong franc. This is noticeably unsettling some sectors of the economy, but we are still reasonably optimistic about the future," says Beat Krebs, CEO of ZenithOptimedia Switzerland, analyzing the situation.

3. mobile online advertising overtakes the advertising volume on desktops

Mobile advertising continues to gain ground: spending in this area will overtake the advertising volume of desktop advertising worldwide as early as next year.mobile advertising will account for 50.2% of internet advertising in 2017. In 2018, the volume of mobile internet advertising will have overtaken all other media globally - with the exception of TV.mobile advertising is currently the key growth driver of the global advertising market. ZenithOptimedia expects this advertising channel alone to grow by an average of 32% per year between 2015 and 2018. This means that mobile advertising is responsible for 87% of the advertising industry's total growth. "We are also seeing a significant increase in mobile internet advertising in our order books in Switzerland. Unfortunately, this is not yet recorded separately in the advertising statistics. However, this would be desirable in order to be able to carry out advertising pressure and competition analyses here in the future," explains Evelin Wachter, Digital Account Director at Vivaki Exchange.

4. programmatic buying is becoming increasingly important

There is a second significant development in online advertising: around 60% of display advertising worldwide will be booked programmatically in the coming year. Switzerland is still relatively at the beginning of this development, but is catching up quickly: "ZenithOptimedia was one of the first agencies in this country to start programmatic buying. In 2016, audience-on-demand bookings will account for around 20% of our clients' display bookings, which is a fourfold increase on the previous year," explains Beat Krebs.