2024 – the year of the Euros, a General Election, and the Summer Olympics. Despite economic challenges, the macro media market shows promise, with global spends expected to grow at pre-pandemic levels, between +4% and +7% compared with 2023. With January complete, here are our insights for the year ahead.
Video
2023 Video pricing was relatively stable compared with 2022, with Linear TV deflation (-6%) mostly offset by modest increases in CTV (+2%), Online Video (+2%) and Cinema (+2%) pricing. In 2024, it’s expected that declining audience figures and steadfast advertiser investment will spell inflation for Linear TV pricing of between 8-10%.
Audio
Radio ad spend is forecast to maintain its relevance, with a predicted increase of 2% in 2024, alongside a continued shift towards DAB+ for linear radio, offering improved audio quality and spectrum efficiency.
OOH
The OOH market rebounded strongly in 2023, with a forecast of 6% annual growth in 2024. Key focus areas for the OOH market in 2024 include programmatic, effectiveness, sustainability and new contract tenders, with a continued emphasis on data-led programmatic DOOH, with such strategies delivering enhanced targeting opportunities and relevance through the dynamic creative that can be deployed.
Publishing
This summer is expected to be more buoyant than usual. The Euros will promote extensive coverage across all platforms to help drive interest across several categories. The general election is also likely to influence the publishing market – the last general election in December 2019 saw increased circulations in multiple titles, bucking the usual trend of circulations being in decline. Another key consideration is how news brands will cover the general election, with the rising continuation of AI use.
Social
Anticipated changes in paid social media investment for 2024 suggest a notable increase compared with 2023, as marketers recognise the growing influence and engagement potential within social platforms. It’s prompted a strategic reallocation of budgets towards these channels. The shift is fuelled by the proven efficiency of personalised ads, increased consumer time spent on social media, and the expanding features of e-commerce integration. Video content will dominate, whilst augmented reality ads will gain traction.
Search
This year, the ongoing advancements in AI and machine learning will continue to play a pivotal role in optimising paid search campaigns. Ethical considerations and user privacy concerns are also expected to influence the paid search landscape. As regulations around data privacy evolve, advertisers will need to adapt their strategies to ensure compliance while maintaining effective targeting capabilities.
Programmatic
The market is turning back towards context as a way of linking a user to interest and content, rather than historical browsing behaviour. Context predates the internet and as technology advances, we can see a triumphant resurrection in contextual targeting application. Sentiment analysis, natural language processing and deep learning allow us to reach users with a level of precision unattainable in recent years.
Looking at these factors, 2024 is set to be an exciting year across the media landscape.
