Global advertising expenditure will grow 4.2 per cent to $559bn in 2017, according to Zenith’s new Advertising Expenditure Forecasts.

That’s down from 4.8 per cent growth in 2016. However, 2016 was a ‘quadrennial year’, and benefited from extra adspend stimulated by the US elections, Summer Olympics in Rio and the football championships in Europe, making the annual comparisons tougher for 2017.

These events added about US$6bn to the global total in 2016; after adjusting for this, underlying growth will actually strengthen from 3.6 per cent in 2016 to 5.4 per cent in 2017.

This growth is coming from acceleration in Latin America and Central & Eastern Europe, and continued strong expansion in Asia Pacific, said Zenith.

Asia Pacific leading global adspend growth

Advertising expenditure in Asia Pacific will grow by $30bn between 2016 and 2019, contributing 43 per cent of the global growth in adspend over this period, Asia Pacific will contribute nearly 50 per cent more ad dollars than the next region, North America, which will grow by $20bn (29 per cent of global growth).

Western Europe will grow by $8bn (11 per cent), Central & Eastern Europe will grow by $4bn (6 per cent), and Latin America will grow by $3bn (4 per cent).

By 2019 Asia Pacific will account for 33.4 per cent of global adspend, up from 32.1 per cent in 2016. This will be the first time it will account for more than a third of the global total.

The Asia Pacific ad market will still be smaller than the ad market in North America, which will account for 36.3 per cent of global adspend in 2019, but the gap between the two is narrowing.

In 2013 the North American ad market was $35bn larger than Asia Pacific’s, but by 2016 the difference had dropped to $27bn, and Zenith expects it to fall to $18bn in 2019.

For the MENA region however, Zenith forecasts an 18.6 per cent drop in adspend in MENA this year, following 10 per cent decline 2016. “The region’s decline should moderate over time, but we predict no recovery during our forecast period. We expect adspend to shrink 6.3 per cent in 2018 and 0.7 per cent in 2019,” Zenith noted in a statement.