Marketers are consolidating more of their ad spend with the largest media sellers, commerce and technology giants. With more globalization, there is now more competition for supply, which is now available to advertisers around the world.
Political advertising to reach CTV
Political advertising will contribute significantly to this year’s advertising economy, with the U.S., Uruguay, Sri Lanka and other countries generating sizable portions of ad spend from political advertising. Government policies and regulation, coupled with legislative changes, stand to impact the industry’s long-term growth, too.
“In the world of media and advertising, we have to keep an eye on regulatory and consumer reaction to everything from advances in artificial intelligence to continued consolidation in the media space as we look to predict growth over the next five years,” the report’s authors wrote.
Political ad investment strategies are shifting, too. It used to benefit certain channels—those offering broad national reach, or hyper-local sellers across out-of-home (OOH), audio and local TV. That’s starting to change, analysts wrote.
Today’s fractured digital economy is complex, given that some political advertisers allocate spend to the likes of micro-influencers, who they deem capable of influencing voters. At the same time, newer channels like CTV are raking in greater portions of spend. By 2028, CTV channels will reap $2 billion in political advertising spend, according to the research.
Retail media balloons and out-of-home hits back
Retail media is growing quickly, by 17.5% this year and 13.5% next year, GroupM analysts predict. OOH advertising will also grow by 11.5% in 2024, bolstered by investment activity in China, which accounts for 54.6% of all digital OOH investments.
“The ability to offer digital marketplaces and build your supply chains overseas [is] helping companies like Amazon, helping companies like Walmart,” Scott-Dawkins said. This year, Walmart moved into the group’s top 25 list of media sellers, in 24th place—and that’s excluding Vizeo revenue, which Walmart aims to acquire pending antitrust litigation.
Digital is still growing and expected to make up 70.6%, or $699 billion, of total global ad spend. Google, Meta, ByteDance, Amazon and Alibaba comprised 77.7% of total global ad spend last year, compared to 65% in 2016.
