DUBAI: The advertising and marketing sectors last year witnessed a marked recovery from the coronavirus pandemic with global ad spending up 23.8 percent, an industry report has revealed.
The strong year of growth was highlighted in marketing intelligence firm WARC’s annual review of its global marketing index, a monthly indicator of the international state of the industry compiled by tracking and analyzing conditions among more than 1,000 marketers.
The report focusses on marketing budgets, trading conditions, and staffing levels, and is complemented by additional analysis from WARC Data.
Zoe McCready, senior research executive at WARC, said: “The global marketing index 2021 shows a consistent overall increase in growth throughout the year, which culminated in November recording the highest global headline index value since the inception of the report in 2011.”
The recovery was led by digital, mobile, TV, and out-of-home, with OOH seeing growth in 2021, after steep declines the previous year, owing to the lifting of restrictions.
The total increase of 23.8 percent in advertising spend, valued at $771 billion, was spread across digital and mobile media, which rose 41.9 percent, OTT or streaming video (41.6 percent), and search (39.4 percent). TV was up by 5.5 percent, and OOH by 21.8 percent.
Over the last year, growth was maintained across all key indices. Despite ups and downs in different markets around the world initiatives, such as vaccine programs, helped markets to adapt and live with COVID-19 rather than despite it.
McCready pointed out that the overall increase in growth of budgets through the year reflected “an industry that is largely weathering the impact of the pandemic as it rapidly adjusts to new trading conditions, which point to the ongoing strength of digital and mobile channels driven by the continued rise of e-commerce.”
Key indices in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and the Americas, remained in growth, but APAC saw some fluctuations through the year.
During 2021, many countries adopted a zero-COVID-19 strategy aimed at eliminating transmission of the virus. Markets in the APAC region that took such an approach, saw decreased rates of growth in the summer when restrictions were imposed.
However, markets in Europe and the Americas that did not adopt the same strategy saw the highest rates of growth over the same period.
Since then, markets in APAC have recovered with marketing budgets and trading conditions showing a higher level of growth compared to Europe and the Americas, the report found.
The economic fallout of the pandemic resulted in people leaving their jobs, particularly in the US, leading to the term The Great Resignation. WARC’s GMI reported that staffing levels in the Americas consistently outperformed Europe and APAC in 2021.
The phenomenon, however, was not limited to the Americas, with staffing levels in Europe and APAC seeing increased growth in the last quarter of 2021. From August, global staffing levels have seen the highest rates of growth since the inception of the GMI in 2011, with November and December scoring the highest index value of 65.3.
“Increased staffing levels recorded globally make up for the impact of The Great Resignation. However, this could present productivity challenges in 2022, especially in the Americas, due to factors such as skills shortages,” McCready added.
The full report can be found here.