The new economic context, promoted by the aggressive tariff policy led by the United States, is already impacting on the advertising investment global. Expenditure forecasts have already dropped almost a percentage point between last November and this March, according to estimates of WARC The trend would also extend the next year, reaching a cut of almost 20,000 million dollars.

As the consultant collects in a new analysis, the market could grow 6.7% this year until reaching 1.15 billion dollars, and 6.3% face 2026. This represents -0.9% and -0.7%, respectively, in relation to the forecasts generated five months ago. However, the global advertising market could experience this year an absolute increase of 72.9 billion dollars with respect to the previous year.

The factors behind these downward reviews of advertising investment estimates are diverse. However, from WARC they point to the growing Risk of “Standing” -The combination of high inflation and a stagnation of the economy- in large markets as the main one of them.

All this is also aggravated by the Tariff increase and the aggressive commercial policies imposed during the last weeks by the United States, and the consequent responses by the European Union, Canada or China. Likewise, the regulation, the contraction of margins, or the consumer savings They are also influencing.

First of all, WARC has drawn three different impact scenarios, based on different degrees of deterioration of market conditions:

• The forecast of WARC Based on current indicators
• The scenario based on the predictions of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which assumes universal commercial tariffs of 10% and cuts 0.5 percentage points of GDP in key economies for three years, in addition to adding 0.4 points to inflation
• A more severe scenario, that subtracts a point from global growth and adds 0.4 points to inflation over the next three years

As we have already mentioned, the WARC scenario raises a reduction of -0.9%in the growth of investment for this year. For its part, the OECD scenario adventures a decrease of -1.2%, which would result in losses of 4,000 million dollars. Meanwhile, the severe scenario would imply a decrease in the investment of -1.7% compared to the expectations raised by WARC in November, and would result in additional losses of 9.5 billion dollars.

WARC has also analyzed the impact of the economic context in the different markets. Points out that advertising investment in USA 5.7%will grow this year, to 451.9 billion dollars. The figure, however, is less than half of the growth rate registered in 2024 (+13.1%), although it could be at 6.5% for 2026 thanks, in part, to the activity around the FIFA World Cup (organized in North America) or the MIDTERM elections in the country.

A deceleration is also forecast for Chinawhere the growth of advertising investment would be 5.3% this year, below 7.1% registered last year. The consultant also foresees decelerations and stagnations of the economy, and therefore, of advertising investment in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Investment Perspectives by sectors and media

By industries, the consultant’s forecasts suggest that motorists, retail and technological will be the most affected. Thus, it provides for a decrease in advertising investment between Automobile brands close to -7.4% this year.
It should be remembered that this sector is one of the main taxpayers to the advertising industry, with an investment of 54.8 billion dollars throughout the last year. Referring to recent data from the European Association of Automobile Manufacturers, he points out that tariffs on Mexican, Canadian and China production represent a risk for 40% of the car industry

As to retail, The investment could register a drop of -5.3% with respect to 2024 levels, mainly reflecting the impact of tariff policies on supply chains. The prospects of the OECD scenario (-5.7%) and the severe scenario (-6.1%) are more pessimistic about what could happen.
The retail sector, according to WARC, has projected advertising investment of 162.7 billion dollars this year, equivalent to 14.1% of the global advertising market.

For its part, the technology industry This year would have a 6.2 % growth in advertising investment, a figure that represents a significant reduction compared to +13.9 % planned in November. Both the OECD scenario (+5.8 %) and the severe scenario (+4.9 %) point to a greater deceleration of growth.
The technology and electronics sector invested 84 300 million dollars in advertising last year

With regard to the media, the consultant projects an 8% increase for the Paid Search, which represents a 1% decrease compared to its previous forecast. On the other hand, he hopes that the companies of social networks obtain 286.2 billion dollars in advertising income this year, 12.1 % more than the previous one, which would be equivalent to almost 25 % of global advertising investment.
However, the greatest growth, of 15.4%, will correspond to average retail.