UK Ad Spend To Grow 5% in 2014

The advertising sector in the United Kingdom will see a 5% increase next year, while global ad spend is expected to increase by 4.5%, according to a recent report by market research company Ipsos.

Last year, UK advertising spend grew to £17 billion, and this year it has reached its 2007 level for the first time. With this in mind, advertising spend is expected to grow even further in 2014.

The digital and television advertising sectors will attract the bulk of total advertising spend in the United Kingdom, and will be among the main drivers of the increase. Behavioural and demographic targeting is expected to be introduced in television within the next three to five years, which in turn will help make ads and content more relevant. In addition, video on demand advertising is forecasted to increase by 33% next year, boosted by the increasing usage of devices connected to the Internet.

The mobile ad market will almost double by the end of this year – it will see an increase of 90% due to the boom in mobile data usage. This presents a marketing opportunity of around £1 billion, compared to £526 million in 2012. This is mainly due to increased smartphone penetration: the smartphone ownership in Britain has grown threefold in the past 3 years, to 52% in the second quarter of this year, compared to only 20% in the same period in 2010.

The average smartphone owner spends approximately two hours daily, or 119 minutes, on their mobile device. This includes 15 minutes on social network websites, and around 24 minutes browsing the Internet.