Global ad spend, CMO outlook, disability representation: 5 interesting stats to start your week

Global ad spend to surpass $1trn for the first time

Global advertising spend is set to surpass $1trn for the first time this year, as WARC forecasts that the figure will reach $1.07trn (£842bn) by the end of 2024.

That figure is up 10% from last year, marking the strongest growth rate in six years, and the largest rise on record, excluding the 2021 bounce-back post-Covid.

Looking to 2025, further ad spend growth is anticipated (7.6%) and in 2026 (7.0%), culminating in a global advertising market worth $1.24trn ($976bn). Global advertising investment has more than doubled over the last decade and has grown 2.8 times faster than global economic output since 2014.

The final quarter is predicted to be big for advertising spend. Global advertisers are expected to spend $299.2bn (£235.3bn) in the final three months of the year, well over half of which will be spent during the holiday season. This represents a 10.2% rise from the 2023 festive period.

Big platforms continue to disproportionately profit from increased advertising spend. Over one in five (22.1%) ad dollars, outside of China, is paid to Google. Google alone accounts for 90.1% of all search advertising outside of China.

Source: WARC

Nearly a quarter of CMOs expect the economy to be worse next year

Just under one in four (23%) CMOs believe the economy will get worse in 2025. A similar number (21%) think it will get better, while the largest proportion (51%) expect the economic backdrop to remain roughly the same next year.

Just one in 20 (5%) of CMOs believe there will be a significant shift in the economy, with 4% believing it will significantly improve and 1% believing it will get significantly worse.

Despite the majority believing 2025’s economy will bring more of the same challenges, the research suggests that optimism around budgets is dwindling. Around one in three (36%) marketing leaders believe their budgets will remain more or less the same next year, compared to 38% last year.

Altogether, 27% of CMOs believe their budgets will decrease by some amount next year, versus the 21% who said the same in 2023. Around one in 10 marketing leaders believe their budgets will decrease by up to 5% (10%) or between five and 10% (12%). A minority (5%) think their budget will decrease by more than 10%.

Despite pessimism around budget increases from around one in four marketers, a bigger proportion remain upbeat, with a total of 37% believing they will see their marketing budgets increase in 2025.

Source: Serviceplan and University of St. Gallen

Only one in 20 Christmas ads features a disabled person

Just 6% of the Christmas ads broadcast in the UK this year featured a disabled person in the creative, according to new research from the Valuable 500.

Out of the 50 ads the advocacy body analysed, only three – O2, British Airways and Smyths Toys – featured a disabled person and, even then, only in a fleeting role. Each of the three instances featured someone in a wheelchair in the background of a shot.

Disability representation has been under the microscope for the advertising industry since Channel 4 brought to light in 2020 that just 3% of TV adverts in the UK featured a disabled person. This number rose slightly to 4% in 2022 – but the number of adverts with a disabled person in the lead role was stagnant both times at 1%.

This is despite the fact there are 16 million people in the UK with a disability (roughly 24% of the working population) and globally one in five people are disabled.

Source: Valuable 500

Data breaches increase by 8.6% in 2024

The number of data breaches experienced by businesses is forecast to have increased by 8.6% in 2024 to reach almost 3,500.

UK businesses will have suffered 3,483 data breaches by the end of this year, according to The Global Payroll Association. The increase seen in 2024 builds on a year of sharp increase in 2023, when business data breaches increased 41% compared to 2022 levels.

That rapid increase in 2023 saw an end to the impact of years of good work in gradually decreasing the number of breaches over time. In 2020, breaches declined by 13% in 2020, followed by another 13% decrease in 2021, and then a further 3% decline in 2022.

In the first half of 2024, there have already been 1,892 reported data protection breaches that include personal employee data, finds the research.

The most commonly attacked areas of businesses are customer service and human resources, with 2020 data suggesting 60% of attacks were focused on HR.

Source: Global Payroll Association

Retail footfall in the UK rises during Black Friday

The Black Friday sales period provided a boost to retail footfall, finds data.

On Black Friday day itself (29 November), total UK in-store traffic rose 4.8% year-on-year. On the Saturday (30 November), when many deals continued, footfall was also up by 1.4% compared to the comparable day last year.

However, there was a slight dip in footfall yesterday (1 December) as the weather got worse, with foot traffic decreasing 1.8% versus last year.

The Black Friday period provided a significant week-over-week increase to footfall. Shopper traffic increased by 30.8% week-on-week, with the high street seeing the greatest footfall gains, rising to 39.9% compared to the week prior. Despite poor weather, Sunday also saw a week-on-week increase in footfall of 11%. Shopping centres were, perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest beneficiaries of this, with footfall up 14.6% versus the same day last week.

Source: Sensormatic Solutions