UK ad spend increases at double the rate predicted 6 months ago

Advertising media giant GroupM has predicted that the UK will see a 7% increase in the amount of money spent on measured media this year, double what it predicted six months ago.

As well as this, GroupM has predicted that UK ad spending will grow by 6% in 2014 to a massive £14.8 billion.

The biannual report, “This Year, Next Year”, drew data supplied by holding company WPP’s wealth of resources in advertising, public relations, market research, and specialist communications.

“This ad recovery is spectacular, but not a phenomenon,” Smith said in releasing the report.  “U.K. annual GDP is likely to have risen 9 percent in cash terms since 2008, and annual advertising the same. The question is whether advertisers sustain their optimism that U.K. households are feeling richer, and might actually get richer, between now and the election expected in spring 2015.

“U.K. paid search has doubled in size since 2008 in cash terms and as a share of all U.K. marketing investment. Smartphones, tablets and e-commerce sustain this momentum. We think mobile (including tablets) will furnish 70 percent of paid search investment growth this year and all of it next year.”

As well as this, GroupM believes digital display advertising will have grown by 17% by this end of year, much in part due to the growth of  video and social inventory.