GroupM has revised downwards its predictions made in June this year for global advertising growth.
The media buying arm of WPP is forecasting growth of 4.8%, compared to 5.7% last year, falling to 3.9% in 2020 and 3.1% in 2021.
Growth is expected to range between 3% and 4% a year to 2024.
"Although much worse than recent years, we note that this would amount to a similar pace of growth to what was observed during 2012–2014," says GroupM's latest worldwide media forecasts.
For Australia, GroupM is forecasting growth of just 0.3% to $US11.4 billion this year, rising to 2% in 2020 and 3.2% in 2021.
GroupM points to Australia's soft economy soft and a "real risk of recession" for the first time in decades.
Globally, growth is being driven by digital-first brands.
Digital advertising is increasingly changing the way consumers behave and digest information. It accounts for 52% of the global advertising tracked in the report and 60% of total advertising in markets including China, the UK, Sweden and Denmark.
Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Booking.com, eBay, Facebook, IAC, JD.com, Netflix and Uber are each now $US1 billion plus advertisers, accounting for $36 billion in spending in 2018, up by a quarter over 2017 levels.
"Combined, this small group of companies accounts for a majority of the world’s growth in spending on advertising," says GroupM.
"To the extent that these companies tend to take shares of consumer spending from others and do not directly cause the global economy to expand, at some point their growth converges with global averages, resulting in slowing growth in spending as well."
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