World Cup 2014 to Propel Global Advertising Spend to $524bn

The World Cup in Brazil is set to kick the global advertising market into the half-a-trillion dollar zone this year as television ads during the flurry of games will boost the sector to $524bn.

According to media buyer ZenithOptimedia, the World Cup will add as much as $500m (£294m, €374m) to the Latin American ad market this year, a further $300m in the US and $300m in Western Europe.

However, the Asia Pacific region is set to reap the least in World Cup related ad spend at $250m, due to the time differences when matches are shown in Latin America.

Meanwhile, the remaining $150m is set to come from Central & Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the rest of the world.

"The World Cup will provide a big boost to television in June and July, but we expect its share of the global advertising market to begin to fall this year, after peaking in 2013," said ZenithOptimedia.

"Television's global market share rose slowly but steadily for decades, increasing from 29.9% in 1980 to 39.6% in 2013. We now expect its share to erode to 39.4% in 2014 and 38.3% by 2016.

"This is not because advertisers are withdrawing from television – far from it, we expect television ad spend to rise at an average of 4.4% a year to 2016. But internet advertising is growing so much faster – at 16.2% a year – partly because it now offers credible brand-building alternatives to television."

The Rise of Digital Ad Spend

ZenithOptimedia also said global advertising will grow 5.4% this year, following the rapid rise in mobile advertising and an improved Eurozone economy.

"Growth will continue to improve over the next two years, reaching 5.7% in 2015 and 6.1% in 2016, driven by continued economic recovery, including, at last, the Eurozone," said Zenith Optimedia in a statement.

According to the group's forecasts, mobile advertising (all internet ads delivered to smartphones and tablets, whether display, classified or search, and including in-app ads) is growing 5.5 times faster than desktop internet.

"We forecast mobile advertising to grow by an average of 49% a year between 2013 and 2016, driven by the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, and the subsequent explosion of mobile search and media consumption," it added.

"By contrast we forecast desktop internet advertising to grow at an average of 9% a year. We forecast mobile to contribute 38% of all the extra ad spend between 2013 and 2016, ahead of television (accounting for 31% of new ad expenditure), followed by desktop internet (30%)."

Meanwhile, online video is set to be another burgeoning area for growth.

ZenithOptimedia said television and online video will increase their share of the global ad market from 41.2% in 2013 to 41.3% in 2014, as video advertising as a whole "will remain the best way to build brand awareness and engagement for many years to come".