Global Advertising Trends 2025

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Who Spends Money, How Much, and What
Globally, PR spend continues to grow. According to the World Advertising Research Center (WARC), it rose 4.4% in 2023 to reach $963.5 billion. This growth is projected to continue in 2024, when ad spend is expected to increase by 8.2%, and total PR investment will cross the $1 trillion mark for the first time in history. However, a significant portion of the revenue comes from a few key companies: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Alibaba, and ByteDance. Together, they will control about half (50.7%) of the global PR industry by the end of 2023, and their share is projected to grow to 51.9% by 2024.

WARC predicts that events such as the US medical practice email list presidential election, the Paris Olympics and the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany will stimulate economic growth and drive up advertising budgets. Consequently, this growth will be particularly noticeable in certain segments of the PR industry:

Social media is projected to be one of the fastest growing PR environments, with advertising revenue expected to increase to $227.2 billion. This will account for about a fifth (21.8%) of total marketing investment planned for next year.

Advertising in social networks

Source: unsplash.com

Retail Media. This segment expects growth in advertising revenue. Their PR revenue is projected to grow by 10.2% in 2023 and by 10.5% next year, reaching a total of $141.7 billion or 13.6% of the global PR budget. Amazon will be the leader in this segment, receiving about 37.2%.

Television (terrestrial and Internet TV). Despite a 5.4% decline in advertising revenues for terrestrial television in 2023, this segment will be able to increase revenues by 3.5% next year, reaching $ 162.9 billion. Its share of the global PR market, although declining, remains significant: 16.3% in 2023 and is projected to be 15.6% in 2024. Internet TV, on the other hand, expects an 11.4% increase in PR investments this year and 12.1% next year. It is predicted that advertisers will spend about $ 33 billion (3.2% of all PR expenses) on it in 2024.

Brief forecast of the advertising budget in 2024
Advertising spending is expected to grow by 8.2% in 2024. Analysts highlight the sectors that are planning the largest increase in investment next year. The highest is expected in the financial services sector (11.5%), followed by technology and electronics (11.3%) and pharmaceuticals and healthcare (11.0%). These are usually the big players in the TV PR market.

However, PR spending by retail, which is the largest advertiser (accounting for 11.1% of the global PR budget), will not grow. WARC analysts attribute this to pressure on consumers in North America and Europe due to high inflation, which is holding back investment growth in this sector. Interestingly, the most impressive growth in advertising investment in 2024 is expected from politicians (503.9%). This is due to the upcoming elections in the US, which stimulates a significant increase in the budget for political PR.