New Report Sheds Light on Christmas Ad Spend

With the Christmas season approaching (John Lewis ad runs on 10th and Sainsbury’s on 14th), a new AA/Warc Expenditure report highlights key facts and figures relating to Christmas advertising from the Advertising Association. The AA/Warc Expenditure Report is the only source that uses actual advertising expenditure, rather than relying solely on estimated or modelled data, unless otherwise stated.

Here are some of the report's key findings:

• Q4 advertising spend has increased 31 per cent in the last five years (£4.2bn in Q4 2010, to a projected £5.5bn in Q4 2016) 

• Most is spent on internet advertising, with a forecast of £2.6bn to be spent in Q4 this year 

• Mobile ad spend in Q4 is set to increase 27 per cent year on year – a 15-fold increase since 2011 – to £1038.2m

• £1.4bn is predicted to be spent on television spots in the quarter – up 16 per cent since Q4 2010 

• It’s an especially important time of year for particular sectors: (All data from Nielsen AdDynamix, 2015)

    - 58 per cent of total fragrances advertising in Q4 

    - 52 per cent of total children’s toys and games advertising in Q4 

    - 55 per cent of total jewellery and watches advertising in Q4

    - 44 per cent of total games and consoles advertising in Q4 

    - 48 per cent of total audio (headphones, ipods, players) advertising in Q4 

    - 36 per cent of total home entertainment advertising in Q4 

    - 66 per cent of total television and home cinema advertising in Q4 

• This advertising spend doesn’t just benefit the commercial media – Deloitte has shown that the £16bn spent on advertising in 2011 returned over £100bn to UK GDP – and supported over 550,000 jobs.1 Within the next five years, advertising alone will have added 70,000 new jobs to the UK economy.2

• Advertising isn’t just a tool used by big companies either – in fact Deloitte has shown that an extra pound spent on advertising by an SME has eight times the effect on sales relative to its size than a large company.3

• Eulogy expects £21bn to be spent on advertising in 2016, with a further 3.8 per cent growth in 2017 to £22bn.

• The UK advertising market is growing 2.8 times faster than the average European market; 7.3 per cent in the UK vs. 2.6 per cent in Europe in 2014 (using PPP).

Image Credit: L. Kenzel