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22.11.2010 GroupM to forecast 4% lift in UK ad spend for 2011

It’s coming to that time of the year again when crystal balls are dusted off and the world’s media powerhouses pool their internal insights to give us their best predictions for the coming year. Putting yourself out there as an industry forecaster can be a thankless task at the best of times, but following the worst advertising recession in living memory, muddied by apparent global decoupling, a banking crisis and the relentless onset of all things digital, and it’s proved to be a treacherous business indeed. Not one analyst or agency expected the country’s advertising market to rebound like it has over the past 12 months. Last December, media’s leading forecasters, WPP’s GroupM and Publicis Groupe’s ZenithOptimedia, unveiled near identical advertising outlooks for 2010, with a muted ‘0% growth’ tipped for the UK.

Fast forward 12 months and both have proved, thankfully, far removed from reality. For once, the media operations run by Sir Martin Sorrell and Maurice Levy stand accused of not being anywhere near bullish enough. According to sources, GroupM is soon set to reveal that ad spend in the UK is set to hit around 7% growth in 2010. Zenith’s figures are likely to concur.

B.L. 22.11.2010