Economic Woes Hurt Europe's Ad Market

Global advertising markets grew 3.2 percent in 2012, bringing the total ad spend to $557 billion.

Advertising expenditure grew in all regions except Europe, where the ongoing debt crisis forced companies to make deep cuts to their ad budgets. Even Germany, one of the countries less affected by the crisis, reported declining ad expenditure for the second half of 2012. Overall, European ad expenditure fell 4.2 percent in 2012, but it can be safely assumed that ad budgets in debt-ridden countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain saw much deeper cuts than that.

Ad spending in North America saw healthy growth in 2012. The largest ad market in the world grew 4.6 percent and strongly contributed to the global uptick in ad spending. Advertisers in the Middle East and Africa benefitted from the region’s improved economic situation. Egypt alone reported a 20 percent increase in ad spending a year after the 2011 revolution.