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Posted on: Monday 25 April 2016
Digital drives 7.5% increase in UK advertising spend in 2015.
UK advertising expenditure grew at its highest rate since 2010 last year, increasing by 7.5% to £20.1bn, according to the UK’s definitive advertising statistics, the Advertising Association/Warc Expenditure Report.
Internet adspend increased 17.3% to £8.6bn, with mobile accounting for 78% of that growth, growing 61.1% to a total of £2.6bn. The UK is comfortably the largest internet advertising market in Europe and ranks third globally, behind the US and China.
TV adspend rose 7.3% to a record £5.3bn, with spot expenditure rising 6.7% and video on demand increasing 20.7%. Cinema adspend rose 20.8% to reach a new high of £238m, driven by high-grossing films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and SPECTRE.
Annual growth in adspend was also recorded for direct mail (+1.4% year-on-year to £1.9bn), out of home (+3.9% to £1.1bn) and radio (+2.9% to £592m) last year.
The strong growth in total UK adspend is expected to continue with a rise of 5.5% forecast in both 2016 and 2017.
Tim Lefroy, Chief Executive at the Advertising Association said: “The UK is the fastest-growing major advertising market in Europe, and its most successful exporter. It's a tribute to our creativity and technical innovation.”
The data show that as a share of GDP, UK adspend rose to 1.08% in 2015, higher than any other G7 nation. For every man, woman and child in the UK, £308.56 was spent on advertising last year.[1]
The Advertising Association/Warc Expenditure Report is the definitive measure of advertising activity in the UK. It is the only source that uses advertising expenditure gathered from across the entire media landscape, rather than relying solely on estimated or modelled data. With total market and individual media data available quarterly from 1982, it is the most reliable picture of the industry and is widely used by advertisers, agencies, media owners and analysts.
At-a-glance media summary
Digital market share figures will be available as part of the IAB/PwC adspend study results within two weeks once all the figures have been collated.
Get a snapshot of the UK advertising market by media sector, using IAB UK/ PwC Adspend and AA / WARC expenditure data
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