What’s In The Forecast?
Living here in Santa Barbara, California, the weather is consistently “sunny with a chance of sun.” Beach days are almost always in the weather forecast; sunny, cloudless days perfect for lazing around by the ocean are what this town is known for. And why this blog post ends here because I need to change my office for the day, immediately! Only kidding, while I can always use a little extra Vitamin D I don’t relish getting sand in my laptop…
It’s *officially* fall which means your company is winding down any summer marketing campaigns and turning towards the holiday-side of things. But what medium should you concentrate on? Where is your time and money best spent? It might not be just sunshine and palm trees ahead – for the advertising and marketing world that is. Let’s take a quick look at the forecast, shall we?, and see just what lies ahead for us.
While no one can predict the future (unless you have a crystal ball, in which case please tell me if I win the lottery anytime soon), there are several reliable reports that predict positive growth. No gloomy skies in sight – just don’t invest solely in print.
Despite global economic uncertainty and the inherent volatility of markets, one trend that’s not going away is digital. It’s fair to say that digital media is propelling the ad market. In fact, eMarketer reports that digital ad spending will surpass TV spending for the first time in U.S. history. Carat, a global media agency, looked at 59 markets across North and South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and predicts that digital advertising will increase by approximately 14% in 2017, compared to 2016. In the United States alone, digital ad sales are set to reach $168.2 billion. By the end of this year, global advertising will grow to $548.2 billion, says Carat, up by 4.4% or $23 billion from 2015.
TV spending did rise 6.6% to $68 billion this year but that’s not predicted to continue into next year. The RIO Olympics and presidential campaigns have a lot to do with the TV ad growth. Actually, more-often-than-not there is a growth trend in years where there are high-interest events (it’s referred to as the Olympic effect.) With no Olympics and no political advertising, TV is projected to decrease to $65 billion in 2017. Digital media spending, however, will rise 13.7% to $76 billion. Half of this goes towards mobile ads. That’s right, mobile continues to drive internet growth and marketers will keep concentrating on mobile in the future. There is an increasing demand for all things digital: mobile, online videos, and social media. To further drive home that point, newspapers ad spend is down 12.7%, magazines are down 12.4%, and radio decreased by $2.8%.
Cooler weather, sweaters, and pumpkin-everything might be right around the corner but I predict sunny skies ahead for the marketing world (at least in terms of positive advertising growth). There is a positive outlook for the end of 2016 with 2017 looking just as good. Just keep mobile-focused and digital-driven! And as always stay creative and innovative because without as many high-interest events next year, your creative team won’t be able to jump on as many bandwagons.
