“Most of the growth in global ad expenditure is now coming from developing markets, which we
forecast to contribute 58% of new ad dollars between 2011 and 2014,” the firm says. “Asia Pacific, Central & Eastern Europe and Latin America are all expanding much faster than the developed world, driven by both their current economic performance and their future potential.”

“Over the next three years we expect Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) to grow by an average of 10.4% a year, Central & Eastern Europe to grow 9.6% a year and Latin America to grow by 7.3% a year,” the firm adds. “The exception is the Middle East & North Africa, where political turmoil has disrupted media production and distribution, and made advertisers wary of attracting negative attention. We forecast the Middle East & North Africa to grow at an average of 1.3% between 2011 and 2014. Overall we expect developing markets – which we here define as everywhere outside North America, Western Europe and Japan – to increase their share of the global ad market from 32.3% in 2011 to 35.9% in 2014.”

Here’s what the firm has by medium:

And market share:

As you can see, Google dominates by a pretty significant margin. “ Over this time Google has tightened its grip on global search (raising its share of searches from 72% in 2006 to 85% now) and established a lead in traditional display and online video with the help of the acquisition and development of companies like DoubleClick and YouTube,” the firm says.

What’s interesting is that while Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL have all been on the decline, Facebook’s share appears to be growing steadily, and could be well on its way to jumping Microsoft. “Since 2006 Facebook has established itself as a major supplier, increasing its market share from just 0.2% to 3.1% in 2010,” the report says. “Last year Facebook doubled its share and overtook AOL; at its current pace of growth it is likely to overtake Microsoft by the end of 2011.”

That will certainly be a good thing for investors to note as Facebook prepares for its IPO next year.

The report said online advertising has performed better than what was forecast three months ago due to its transparency, accountability and flexibility. Online advertising is the only category forecast for growth in 2009.

ZenithOptimedia predicts online ad spending will reach $56.8 billion this year, accounting for 12.6 percent of the global advertising market.

"By 2011 we expect it to account for 15.1% of all ad expenditures, up from 10.5% in 2008," the report predicts.

"Most of this growth will come from paid search, which is an ideal method of reaching consumers looking for bargains. In the U.S., we predict search advertising to grow 20.0% in 2009, while traditional display grows 3.0% and classified grows just 1.8%."

The report said some of the growth in the U.S. search advertising marketplace was due to the launch of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, which has led to "welcome competition to Google and should spur further innovation in search."

Overall ad spending is forecast to decrease 8.5 percent this year, down from an April forecast of a 6.9 percent decline.

The report said newspaper ad spending would continue to decline from its 2007 peak of  $131 billion globally.

"We predict newspaper ad expenditure to shrink 14.7% in 2009 and to continue shrinking for the rest of our forecast period. In 2011 we forecast newspaper ad expenditure will total US$101 billion, 22.7% below its 2007 peak," the agency said.

The report said online advertising has performed better than what was forecast three months ago due to its transparency, accountability and flexibility. Online advertising is the only category forecast for growth in 2009.

ZenithOptimedia predicts online ad spending will reach $56.8 billion this year, accounting for 12.6 percent of the global advertising market.

"By 2011 we expect it to account for 15.1% of all ad expenditures, up from 10.5% in 2008," the report predicts.

"Most of this growth will come from paid search, which is an ideal method of reaching consumers looking for bargains. In the U.S., we predict search advertising to grow 20.0% in 2009, while traditional display grows 3.0% and classified grows just 1.8%."

The report said some of the growth in the U.S. search advertising marketplace was due to the launch of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, which has led to "welcome competition to Google and should spur further innovation in search."

Overall ad spending is forecast to decrease 8.5 percent this year, down from an April forecast of a 6.9 percent decline.

The report said newspaper ad spending would continue to decline from its 2007 peak of  $131 billion globally.

"We predict newspaper ad expenditure to shrink 14.7% in 2009 and to continue shrinking for the rest of our forecast period. In 2011 we forecast newspaper ad expenditure will total US$101 billion, 22.7% below its 2007 peak," the agency said.

The report said online advertising has performed better than what was forecast three months ago due to its transparency, accountability and flexibility. Online advertising is the only category forecast for growth in 2009.

ZenithOptimedia predicts online ad spending will reach $56.8 billion this year, accounting for 12.6 percent of the global advertising market.

"By 2011 we expect it to account for 15.1% of all ad expenditures, up from 10.5% in 2008," the report predicts.

"Most of this growth will come from paid search, which is an ideal method of reaching consumers looking for bargains. In the U.S., we predict search advertising to grow 20.0% in 2009, while traditional display grows 3.0% and classified grows just 1.8%."

The report said some of the growth in the U.S. search advertising marketplace was due to the launch of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, which has led to "welcome competition to Google and should spur further innovation in search."

Overall ad spending is forecast to decrease 8.5 percent this year, down from an April forecast of a 6.9 percent decline.

The report said newspaper ad spending would continue to decline from its 2007 peak of  $131 billion globally.

"We predict newspaper ad expenditure to shrink 14.7% in 2009 and to continue shrinking for the rest of our forecast period. In 2011 we forecast newspaper ad expenditure will total US$101 billion, 22.7% below its 2007 peak," the agency said.

The report said online advertising has performed better than what was forecast three months ago due to its transparency, accountability and flexibility. Online advertising is the only category forecast for growth in 2009.

ZenithOptimedia predicts online ad spending will reach $56.8 billion this year, accounting for 12.6 percent of the global advertising market.

"By 2011 we expect it to account for 15.1% of all ad expenditures, up from 10.5% in 2008," the report predicts.

"Most of this growth will come from paid search, which is an ideal method of reaching consumers looking for bargains. In the U.S., we predict search advertising to grow 20.0% in 2009, while traditional display grows 3.0% and classified grows just 1.8%."

The report said some of the growth in the U.S. search advertising marketplace was due to the launch of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, which has led to "welcome competition to Google and should spur further innovation in search."

Overall ad spending is forecast to decrease 8.5 percent this year, down from an April forecast of a 6.9 percent decline.

The report said newspaper ad spending would continue to decline from its 2007 peak of  $131 billion globally.

"We predict newspaper ad expenditure to shrink 14.7% in 2009 and to continue shrinking for the rest of our forecast period. In 2011 we forecast newspaper ad expenditure will total US$101 billion, 22.7% below its 2007 peak," the agency said.

Zenith’s original forecast, made in March, said the Internet would account for 9.7 percent of global ad spending this year, for a total of $47.5 billion, and 12.3 percent in 2010, or $66.9 billion.

In the new forecast, Zenith predicts that online spending will exceed 10 percent of all advertising in 2008, for a total of $52.2 billion, and in 2010 account for 13.6 percent, or $78.2 billion.

Makes you want to grab the champagne, right?

But, with all these forecasts, studies, estimates, and whatnot, where’s the accountability? Who’s logging these numbers and then looking back at their accuracy?

We’ve already seen that research companies can be way off base, when it comes to forecasting web spend, so why is it that we just eat these numbers up, without wondering how accurate they are?

I’d love to see a company that keeps track of these estimates. Come 2009, was Zenith correct in its forecast of $52.2 billion in online ad spending for 2008? Which company was the most accurate? Who do we trust?

Comments

David Kaplan reports that overall Internet ad spending should "grow 26.7 percent and break through the 10 percent share barrier this year – a year earlier than Zenith predicted just three months ago.  By 2010 Zenith predicts online will attract 13.6 percent of all advertising, well ahead of the company’s previous prediction of 12.3 percent."

 ZenithOptimedia

In regards to everything else, "The sunny views for online advertising are included in a report that expects darkening clouds for growth in North America and Europe: Zenith has downgraded its forecast for the former to 3.5 from 3.7 percent, while growth for the latter is expected to end up 3.7 percent higher instead [of] the earlier prediction of 3.9 percent."

This state of affairs may be hard for Web marketers to celebrate, and a little schadenfreude will certainly be at work if they whip up some cheers.  Looked at in "better them than us" terms, though – and assuming ZenithOptimedia doesn’t change its estimates another time – the situation is what it is.

Traditional marketers can at least take some comfort in the fact that the Dow is doing better than the Nasdaq so far today.