Three new ad spending forecasts released Sunday night are pegging ad growth next year partly on the Winter Olympics, the World Cup and the mid-term elections in the U.S., but forecasters continued to regard Western Europe with caution.
WPP’s GroupM revised its worldwide advertising spending forecast for 2014 downward to 4.6% from 5.1%, its prediction earlier this year, citing “economic gridlock in the U.S. and a persistent financial crisis in the Eurozone.” The media agency network is now forecasting an increase in global spending from $508 billion in 2013 to $531 billion in 2014.