UK Advertising Spend Grows 5.3% In Q3

The latest quarterly Expenditure report from the Advertising Association and marketing information service Warc points to a 5.5% rise in UK advertising spend in the third quarter of 2013, which is the strongest growth rate seen since the fourth quarter of 2010.

According to the research, local organisations allocated £4.173 billion to support their advertising initiatives in July-September 2013, with the growth mainly coming from the solid results delivered by TV and Internet in that period.

The solid results delivered in the quarter, along with the reassuring economic prospects, have made the researchers improve their guidance for the entire 2013 by 0.5 percentage points; they now expect advertising expenditure to see 3.8% growth in 2013, reaching £17.838 billion. Ad spend for 2014 is forecast to add 5.3% to £18.786 billion, or 0.1 percentage point more than previously predicted.

The report found that Internet advertising attracted 13.7% more in investment in the quarter compared with a year ago, while TV advertising revenues advanced 14.5% after seeing relatively low investment in the same period of 2012.

Across other media, all categories witnessed annual drops in expenditure. The decline in cinema advertising spend was the most substantial, at 8.1%, while the second biggest fall was recorded in news brands advertising, at 6.9%.

The researchers also registered a 4.8% drop in out-of-home ad spend in the three-month period. Despite the decline, the segment’s performance was stronger than analysts’ projections for a double-digit fall, following the 25% jump in expenditure in the same quarter of 2012 that resulted from the Olympic Games.

Elsewhere, radio advertising expenditure slipped 4.3%, while magazine brands saw a 2.2% drop.