Global Advertising To Fall 10% In 2020; Brazil, Japan, UK Among Hardest-Hit – Report

A young man wearing a face mask walks past advertising at Akihabara district in Tokyo, Japan, in April 2020. Franck Robichon/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

A new forecast from agency giant GroupM sees total global advertising declining 10% in 2020, counting U.S. political dollars, with international damage the worst in countries like Brazil, Japan and the UK.

The mid-year forecast assesses all media, projecting a return to previous levels by 2022. Excluding political ads in the U.S., global spending will total $517.5 billion, down nearly 12% from 2019. In 2021, though, an 8% rise in advertising will be paced by half of the top 10 global markets increasing by double-digits, the report predicts.

COVID-19 is the main culprit for 2020’s meltdown, though the report also highlights factors such as protests across Asia and the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Hard-hit countries include Brazil, which is expected to see an eye-opening 29.1% plunge; Japan, which is on pace for a 20% decline; and France, which is due to fall 15%. The UK, which has seen one of the worst outbreaks of the coronavirus, is predicted to post a 12.5% drop in spending.

The only multi-billion-dollar market that GroupM expects to grow significantly this year is Indonesia, which should rise by almost 6%. Argentina is the only other market expected to grow in nominal terms, although it should decline on an inflation-adjusted basis.

The economy of South Korea, which has earned praise for its response to COVID-19, has held up fairly well and ad spending should decline by low-single-digits. “If you’re exposed to South Korea, it’s pretty much business as usual,” Group M global president of business intelligence Brian Wieser told Deadline in an interview.

There’s not always a strict correlation between virus response and marketing impact, Wieser noted. Japan, for instance, “has had a fairly minimal human toll but a major economic one.”

“Television should retain its dominant role for large brands but will nonetheless decline severely this year,” Wieser wrote in the report. Excluding political in the U.S., total TV ads will drop 17.6% in 2020 before rebounding slightly to grow 5.9% next year.