New figures from the Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report reveal total UK adspend rose 9.7% to £10.6bn during the third quarter of 2024, and is set to rise 6.9% in 2025 to be worth £43.5bn.
While the report draws its own conclusions, Decision Marketing quizzes industry chiefs for their take on what it all means for the sector and beyond.
For Charlie Oscar chief growth officer Will Frappell, the report reinforces a clear trend that in times of economic uncertainty, advertisers gravitate to digital channels that offer more easily trackable ROI and measurable impact.
He explains: “The continued adoption of AI-driven automation within digital buying platforms is accelerating this shift, making it easier than ever to optimise campaigns at scale.
“While overall investment confidence remains cautious, the brands that will win in 2025 are those that can measure ROI holistically across the full funnel, ensuring that every pound spent delivers maximum value.
“Marketing teams who integrate performance-led digital strategies with a clear measurement framework while continuing to grow their owned and earned channels, will be best positioned to drive sustainable growth in the year ahead.”
Brave Bison Performance director of strategy Brenda Imeson, meanwhile, believes the figures reveal “fascinating shifts” in the UK advertising landscape and to see growth in the sector is really encouraging.
However, she reckons the main stand out is that digital channels are clearly driving the market’s expansion. Even within the traditional media categories, there is a clear digital transformation story – online formats outperformed their analogue counterparts across TV, radio, news brands, and magazines.
Imeson adds: “As with all topline spend reports we can observe this growth of digital but only speculate as to what is driving this continual shift and increase in spend. Digital ad prices are rising but what is particularly noteworthy is the adoption of AI tools in driving online ad format growth.
“What shouldn’t be overlooked is the growth in new advertisers with smaller budgets who can still make an impact using digital. This longtail is adding to the numbers year on year.
“Though the report rightly flags economic uncertainty as a potential brake on growth, performance and direct marketing will remain resilient so there is optimism in the year ahead for moderate growth.”
Over at Wavemaker, chief investment officer Ian Stevens is another who sees reasons for cautious optimism, yet, while digital growth remains strong, and traditional channels stable, he believes the underlying trends are more nuanced. Online display continues to rise, fuelled by AI investment, SME support, and diversification beyond Meta and TikTok.
Stevens says: “It’s promising to see established media channels evolving their offerings into digital equivalents.
“This shows that fragmentation and proliferation offer opportunities to leverage established platforms to reach more precise audiences, and opens up opportunities to deliver innovation, creativity and further investment. Additionally, BVOD, digital audio, digital OOH performed well in 2024 and will continue to do so this year.
“Looking ahead, 2025 will bring further growth in commerce, becoming even more interesting with the impact of the HFSS (junk food) advertising legislation.”
UniLED Software client services director Gideon Adey, meanwhile, highlights the continuing growth of out of home media, driven by increased digitisation of the medium.
However, he adds: “A razor-sharp focus on measurement will always follow close behind an uptick in ad spend. OOH and DOOH are trusted media that deliver (and over-deliver) against their budgets, but brands will want tangible reassurance that their +10.3% is driving an ad campaign’s overall success.
“The continued growth in DOOH in terms of numbers of frames and the impacts they deliver, is allowing for an increase in the broadcast use of DOOH competing with any other channel in terms of reach.
“While the flexibility of DOOH leads to an increase in the use of data-driven planning – specifically behavioural data to maximise OOH/DOOH’s value to advertisers, allowing for more nuanced and targeted campaigns – planning both geographically and temporally, even more opportunities are being delivered outside of London.
“We have also seen a resurgence and refinement of marketing mix modelling (MMM) and econometric techniques. Where granular data is used in these models more accurate ROI measurement for OOH is achieved and a better understanding of the full value the medium delivers.
“The value driven by DOOH, more nuanced planning and buying, and better measurement of ROI, all rely on knowing exactly what DOOH ran, and where, to truly measure the impact and increasing value of the medium.”
Trade Desk VP UK Phil Duffield says the figures align with his agency’s research which shows omnichannel campaigns are 1.5x more effective than disconnected ones, proving that seamless, audience-first strategies drive impact.
He comments: “With strong adspend forecasts for 2025, brands that connect channels effectively to reflect consumer behaviour will see the greatest returns.
“To maximise return on adspend, advertisers must prioritise standardised cross-channel measurement to unlock the full potential of data-driven insights and identify what is and isn’t working, while optimising in real-time.”
Finally, Lotame chief revenue officer Chris Hogg concludes: “Q3 was always going to be a bumper quarter for UK advertising, with the double-whammy of the Olympics and the Euros guaranteeing attentive and receptive audiences buoyed by the feel-good factor of tentpole sports.
“It’s fantastic to see the advertising industry stand out as one of the few bright stars of the UK economy, but don’t be surprised to see a softer Q4 in the next report. Budget allocations will have no doubt favoured Q3’s sports-packed calendar over a relatively frugal Christmas period.
“It also wouldn’t surprise me if retail media is responsible for the exceptional growth in search spend. Anyone living in the UK has seen just how aggressively supermarkets are incentivising their loyalty schemes, and retailers have become the major benefactor of the joined-up approach to consumer data that is now possible with modern collaborative technologies.
“I hope WARC separates retail media in future reports so that we can get a more thorough understanding of its place in media plans, and whether it is cannibalising or supplementing traditional search budgets.”
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