BRICs drive adspend growth

Warc's latest Consensus Ad Forecast indicates that global advertising expenditure will grow more slowly in 2013 than previously thought, at 3.4%, but adspend in the BRIC nations will increase between two and three times as fast.

The Consensus Ad Forecast is based on a weighted average of adspend predictions at current prices from ad agencies, media monitoring companies, analysts, Warc's own team and other industry bodies.

The revised figure of 3.4% is a downgrade of -0.6 percentage points (pp) from an earlier forecast in January 2013. Predictions for all countries, except Japan and Australia, have been cut since then. The biggest revisions came in the European nations of Spain (-6.7pp), Italy (-7.0pp) and France (-2.1pp).

All developed nations were predicted to see below average adspend growth, while Brazil (8.1%), Russia (12.1%), India (8.4%) and China (9.7%) are anticipated to be the strongest performers in 2013.

That performance will continue into 2014, when Brazil (10.7%), Russia (10.7%), India (11.4%) and China (11.4%) will again far outpace the rest of the world, which is forecast to grow 5.4%.