2021 was the strongest year ever for UK’s ad market

The latest Advertising Association/WARC "Expenditure Report" has outlined an even greater recovery for the UK’s advertising market than previously expected, with revised estimates for growth in 2021 standing at 26.4% to reach a total of £29.7 billion. The new findings upgrade October’s projection for 2021 (+24.8%) by 1.6 percentage points, equating to the strongest year in UK ad market history. This is supported by the actual data released for Q3 2021, showing ad spend of £7.3 billion – the largest-ever summer spend on record.

New forecasts also show total investment for 2022 is set to rise by 8.5% to £32.2 billion – meaning the UK market will have expanded by more than a third since 2020. A bright start to the year contributes to an upgrade of almost one percentage point for 2022 growth, while sectors especially hit by the pandemic – such as cinema and out-of-home – will expect to see a continued recovery.

In addition, these recovery projections are supported by international data from WARC which expects the UK’s bounce-back in 2021 to be the largest across any major international ad market – including the United States, France and China – while outstripping the global rate by more than 12 percentage points.

“UK advertising has seen a remarkable recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, racing ahead of key international markets with spend expected to cross the threshold of £30 billion this year. A strong advertising market is a key indicator of the UK economy’s growth, with every £1 spent on advertising generating £6 GDP. The latest AA/WARC report brings welcome news not just for our industry but for the wider economy, as advertising investment is a key lever for businesses to capture new markets and drive their recovery,”  said Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive of the Advertising Association.

James McDonald, Director of Data, Intelligence & Forecasting at WARC, added: “The latest verified data support our previous estimation that 2021 was the strongest year for the UK’s advertising market since monitoring began. Encouragingly this momentum appears to have sustained into the new year, with the impact of the Omicron variant on advertising trade appearing to be reasonably muted across the majority of sectors. While inflation is set to act as a headwind on both the consumer and media buyers alike in the coming months, we have little reason to believe that the UK’s ad market won’t achieve growth of 8.5% this year – well ahead of the average recorded during the decade preceding the outbreak”.