Australia has emerged from the pandemic depths of 2020 as a top five market by ad spend growth rate globally.
Dentsu's mid year forecasts put Australia's as spend growth at 12.7% to US$12.8 billion for 2021, emerging into positive territory earlier than expected, following a 11.2% fall in 2020.
Growth in 2022 is forecast at 2.9%, pushing ad spend to US$13.2 billion.
Australia's strong economic recovery saw pickup in TV and digital where the government focused much of COVID-related campaigns.
Prerna Mehrotra, CEO Media APAC: “We are optimistic that the region will bounce back to positive growth in ad spend, with some channels likely boosted higher than pre-pandemic levels.
"The main drivers behind the growth is economic recovery, with the APAC GDP set to increase by 7.3%, and a stronger-than-ever push to digital marketing."
Advertising investment is forecast to grow by 10.4% globally in 2021, according to the latest dentsu ad spend report. The twice-yearly report which combines data from 59 markets, anticipates US$634 billion will be spent globally with all regions enjoying positive growth.
Ad spend in APAC is expected to grow by 8% or US$17 billion to US$229 billion.
For Australia, dentsu says the recovery has been much faster than expected in the six months to June thus year.
"TV is the key beneficiary of broad market ad spend in addition to Government COVID-related campaigns, whilst digital ad spend has been driven by a surge in retail advertising and will represent 61.1% of spend in this market," says the ad spend report.
The six months to December is expected to be further buoyed by the Tokyo Olympics and a possible Australian federal election in the December quarter.
Globally, the pandemic-induced decline in advertising spend during 2020 has proved less severe than anticipated.
While 2020 remains the weakest performing year since the global financial crisis, the decline in growth during 2020 has improved since the January 2021 forecast from -8.8% to -7.2%.
Global forecasts:
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