UK Ad Spending 2018

Digital Video Driving Ad Market Growth

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About This Report
The UK ad market is rebounding from a slow 2017. This year, ad spending will increase 9.5% to £20.77 billion ($26.74 billion), led by investment in digital video advertising. This report includes our latest UK ad spending forecast, as well as time spent with media.

The UK advertising market is on the rebound. In 2018, ad spending will increase 9.5% to £20.77 billion ($26.74 billion), compared with last year’s growth of 4.4%, due to easing advertiser anxiety regarding the impact of Brexit and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Those concerns have had less of an impact this year.

Display advertising in the UK will rise 42.9% to £5.68 billion ($7.31 billion), primarily on the strength of digital video. We forecast that digital video will drive overall ad market growth as advertisers allocate £2.52 billion ($3.24 billion) to the format—a 45.5% increase over 2017. By 2020, video will represent more than half of display ad spending.

High demand for video ad inventory, primarily on Facebook, is generating premium prices for video advertising. Facebook and Google reported strong earnings from digital video during H1 2018, citing increased business from Instagram and YouTube, respectively. Meanwhile, Twitter noted that video content around the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament generated additional revenues.

Our complete estimates for UK ad spending and time spent with media can be found in this report’s accompanying spreadsheet.

authors

Corey McNair

Contributors

Jaimie Chung
Associate Product Manager
Showmik Podder
Forecasting Analyst

"Behind the Numbers" Podcast