The coronavirus pandemic could slash as much as $3 billion from advertising and marketing budgets in 2020, according to a new report, cited in the New York Post. “This is a global human disaster that impacts every company,” said Jack Myers, who authored the report and who has been tracking the ad spend market since the 1980s.
Myers’ forecast on the ad spending impact of the Covid-19 outbreak triples his previous forecast of a $1 billion blow. Given how quickly the virus has been spreading, “a decline of $3 billion is more likely,” he assured.
Before the coronavirus forced retailers, restaurants and entertainment venues to close their doors, Myers was predicting $227 billion would be spent on advertising and marketing in the United States this year— a 6.2% increase from 2019. The $3 billion decline — to $224 billion — represents a 1% drop from the earlier forecast, meaning ad and marketing spending could still be up 4.8% from a year ago.
On the other hand, as the coronavirus forces people to spend more time at home, streaming video platforms could see ad spending grow 42%, to $2.6 billion — up from his pre-coronavirus forecast for growth of 38%. Cable could see a decline in ad spending if it’s forced to halt production of popular dramas and resort to reruns.
According to a report from eMarketer, the global ad-spending outlook has been revised downward by billions of dollars each year through 2023. "Our downward revision is primarily due to one country: China, the epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak. The first case was discovered there in late December 2019, so we have had more time to track the virus’s impact on the country’s ad market," the eMarketer update states.
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