“Embattled” developing markets dragging down ad spend
Global concern over the state of the economy is dragging ad spend down, finds Nielsen.
Marketers in more than half of the world’s biggest economies are cutting back spend on advertising over fears that the Eurozone crisis could prompt a second recession in five years, according to a study.
Nielsen data for the second quarter of 2011 shows ad spend growth slowing to 5.7%, from 8.9% in the first three months of the year.
Spend dropped in 16 of the 36 markets surveyed, the first “significant decline” since the third quarter of 2009, Nielsen says.
The research firm blamed a dip in spending by FMCG companies in Europe and North America for the decline.
Randall Beard, global head of advertiser solutions for Nielsen, says: “The FMCG sector had proved to be one of the most resilient and recession-proof ad categories in recent years, but renewed concern for another global downturn and anticipated spending restraint caused advertisers to pull back in the most embattled regions of Western Europe and North America.”
Across all sectors, Western European ad spend fell back 0.3%, with seven out of 12 European markets reporting quarterly declines.
Marketing intelligence service Warc forecast in August that global ad spend for 2011 would grow 3.2%. Adjusted for inflation, however, negative growth is predicted.
