TV advertisers spending despite tough economic outlook

ZenithOptimedia has upgraded its global advertising spend forecasts and says that large corporations are investing cash reserves in marketing and TV advertising despite the challenging economic environment in many territories.

The media agency says that ad spend is increasing because of a reduced risk of a disastrous collapse in the Eurozone and because large companies have been building cash reserves since the start of the downturn in 2008.

However, while the global forecasts for 2012 have been upgraded, Zenith has reduced forecasts for Western and Eastern Europe. It now expects 1.5% growth in western European ad-spend and 6.5% in eastern Europe. The US growth forecast remains the same at 3.6%.

Asia has been upgraded to 7.4% growth while Latin America gets the largest upgrade. From a previous forecast of 6%, Zenith now says 2012 growth will come in at 9.2% in the region.

By medium, TV remains the largest category and will benefit from the Olympics this year. Zenith notes: “Television’s share of the global ad market has risen steadily over the last few years: it reached 39.9% in 2011, up from 36.9% in 2005. We expect the popular televised quadrennial events to lift television’s share to 40.1% in 2012, but beyond that we forecast its share to return to 39.9% by 2014.”