UK advertising expenditure grew 1.3% year-on-year in Q1 2017 to reach £5,318m – the 15th consecutive quarter of growth but the slowest rate in almost four years, according to Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report.
Overall market growth occurred despite a drop of -6.2% in total television advertising, its steepest fall since 2009. However, TV ad expenditure is forecast to recover in 2018 with 2.5% growth.
Digital formats performed well across the board, up 25.4% for national newsbrands, 8.1% for radio, 7.2% for broadcaster video-on-demand and 27.6% for out-of-home. Cinema recorded an outstanding quarter, growing 27.6% year-on-year in Q1.
Ad spend growth continues to be driven by internet (+10.1% year-on-year), which includes digital revenues for newsbrands, magazine brands, TV and radio broadcasters. Within this, spend on mobile formats (+36.2%) was particularly strong during the first quarter. One in four pounds spent on advertising in the UK now goes towards search.
The full year outlook for 2017 has been downgraded by -0.5pp to 2% growth, but is forecast to recover by 2018 at 2.6% growth, driven by the men’s football World Cup and a likely improvement in certainty around the terms of Brexit.
