Global spending on digital advertising is forecast to increase 15 percent next year, buoyed by mobile and social media campaigns, and is projected to equal outlays for television by 2019.
Digital expenditures in 2015 will reach $163 billion, or 30 percent of total ad spending, according to Magna Global, a media research unit of Interpublic Group of Cos. In four years, digital will account for 38 percent of global ad outlays, a proportion as large as TV, which has held the biggest share of spending for more than a decade.
“It will happen sooner than we previously thought,” Vincent Letang, Magna Global’s executive director for global forecasting, said today at UBS AG’s media and communications conference in New York.
The forecast reflects consumers’ shift toward staring at their smartphone screens all day, rather than their televisions, according to Letang. In 2014, global mobile ad spending increased 72 percent, he said.
“This year, next year, if you do the math, almost all the growth is from mobile,” Letang said in a phone interview. “Especially in the home, for casual users and for entertainment purposes, tablets and smartphones are making great progress.”
TV ad spending is projected to rise 3 percent next year and 6 percent in 2016, New York-based Magna Global said. While TV has been the top medium for ad spending since 1999, when it replaced newspapers, smartphones and tablets have provided features that keep consumers hooked to the devices, Magna Global said. As a result, mobile ad spending has surged.
ZenithOptimedia, a London-based media research group, projects mobile ad spending will increase by an average of 38 percent each year from 2014 to 2017.
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