The ad market is like a hydra: Every time a head gets cut off, two grow back.
Which is to say, for every channel that goes out of fashion – we’re looking at you, linear TV and physical newspapers – a new one pops up to replace it, keeping overall ad spend on the rise.
Despite the heightened economic uncertainty this year and the continued slowdown of traditional media’s growth, global advertising revenue is still trending upward, according to Magna’s latest global ad forecast, released this week.
Magna predicts that global advertising revenues for media owners will reach $979 billion in 2025, up 4.9% from 2024. Not too shabby.
Retail details
In particular, search and retail media are continuing to grow, offsetting the loss of revenue from other channels. Magna predicts these channels will grow 8% to $359 billion.
The ad market is incredibly resilient, said Vincent Létang, EVP of global market intelligence at Magna. Retail media, especially, is strengthening the market by bringing new dollars into the ecosystem.
Retail media “redirects marketing budgets into advertising formats, specifically digital advertising formats,” Létang explained, with an emphasis on search.
Unlike the shift from linear to CTV or newspapers to digital, the increase in retail media spend is coming from new forms of media, like short-form video and digital out-of-home.
This paves the way for growth, rather than just breaking even.
Still talking tariffs
But some industries aren’t seeing growth because, well, their time in the spotlight is over.
Traditional media owners, such as radio and publishing, are expected to see a 3% decline from 2024. Even after adjusting for the lack of major events like the US elections and the Olympics in this year, traditional media revenue would be flat.
But the lack of growth in other industries is a direct result of the current economic climate.
If you thought you could read an article about trends in ad spend without hearing about tariffs, think again.
At the beginning of this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted a 3.3% global growth rate for 2025. By April, this estimation had dropped to 2.8% as a result of “major policy shifts,” according to the IMF.
While the numbers might not look inspiring, Létang described it as a “relatively small decrease” overall. However, he was quick to note that some countries will be impacted more severely than others.
Canada, Mexico and Japan, for example, which derive significant revenue from exports to the US, will be hit hard, although the US won’t see as much of an impact.
Certain industry verticals are also at risk. The automotive industry, for instance, is currently “a huge question mark,” said Létang. There was a large spike in car sales in March and April, likely because rumors were floating “that car prices were going to go up by 20% in a matter of weeks,” he said.
By May, growth was completely flat.
Magna’s projections suggest that automotive will decline by 2% in 2025 globally and 3% in the US.
Since automotive is such an international industry, it seems unavoidable for prices to skyrocket under current policies, although some manufacturers have promised to maintain their current pricing models.
Létang isn’t sold, though: “It remains to be seen if they can really do that in the long term.”
