TORONTO—In its July report ZenithOptimedia upgraded its forecast for global ad growth this year from 2.2% to 3.5%. This is the third upgrade in a row for the report, following six consecutive downgrades in recent years.


Canadian adspend by medium 2009

Most of the adspend increase is expected in North America and Westen Europe, where it was stronger than expected in the first half of the year, according to the report. Canada has rebounded from the recession much more quickly than the U.S., it says. ZenithOptimedia expects ad spend growth here to reach 5.4% this year.

Magazine adspend is expected to drop slightly this year over last, from 9.8% to 9.3% of total advertising in the U.S..

The internet continues its steady rise, increasing its global market share from 10.5% in 2008 to 12.7% in 2009. By 2012 Zenith expects it to account for 17.0% of total expenditure, just two percentage points below newspapers in the U.S.. Paid search is the main engine of internet growth: it accounted for 50.2% of all internet expenditure in 2009, and is forecast to rise to 52.6% in 2012.

In the U.S., where they are most visible and best measured, mobile advertising and social media are growing much faster than any other internet format. Between 2009 and 2012 the study forecasts mobile advertising to grow by an average of 43.2% a year, while social media advertising grows by 30.2% a year, compared to 15.6% a year for the internet as a whole. The two formats overlap to an extent, since many consumers use their mobile devices to access their social profiles, and mobile social networking will become more and more important to advertisers over the coming years. Mobile and social advertising accounted for just 5% of internet expenditure in the US in 2009, but ZenithOptimedia expect this proportion to rise to 8% in 2012.

Newspapers have been losing share every year since 1987, when they accounted for 40.6% of expenditure. By 2009 that share had fallen to 23.0%, and the study expects it to fall further to 19.2% in 2012.