MENA Digital Ad Spend To Hit $1BN

Spending on ads served to internet-connected devices including desktop and laptop computers, mobile phones and tablets will make up around one-quarter of total media ad spending around the world reaching $137.53 billion this year, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates of worldwide paid media spending.

Digital ad spend will be up 14.8% over 2013 levels, according to the forecast, and will make up just over one-quarter of all paid media spending worldwide. That’s up from about one-fifth of spending in 2012, and it is set to rise to nearly one-third of the total by the end of our forecast period, when advertisers around the world will invest $204.01 billion in digital.

Global mobile advertising spending, on the other hand, is forecast to reach $18.0 billion in 2014, up from the estimated $13.1 billion in 2013, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is expected to grow to $41.9 billion by 2017. Gartner said that display formats will make up most of the revenue, but video will show the highest growth.

“Over the next few years, growth in mobile advertising spending will slow due to ad space inventory supply growing faster than demand, as the number of mobile websites and applications increases faster than brands request ad space on mobile device screens,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. “However, from 2015 to 2017, growth will be fueled by improved market conditions, such as provider consolidation, measurement standardization and new targeting technologies, along with a sustained interest in the mobile medium from advertisers.”

With regard to the different ad formats used in the mobile sector, mobile display ad formats are collectively the single biggest category of ads, and will remain so throughout the forecast period, although this category will shift to mobile Web display after several years of higher growth in in-app display. Uptake of the audio/video format by the end of the forecast period is higher because the tablet form factor will drive video, and the tablet market continues to grow.

In addition, search/map ad types will benefit from increased use of location data gathered from users, either through them opting into being located automatically through their devices or because they proactively check in the places they visit using apps such as Foursquare and Pinterest. As a result, local advertisers will be more interested in the mobile channel as a means of pushing ads. The split between in-app and Web display is taking longer to shift in favor of the latter, as the use of HTML5 tools in mobile website development is taking longer to impact the market.

All regions of the world will experience strong growth in mobile advertising spend, although North America is where most of growth will come from, due to the sheer scale of its advertising budgets and their shift to mobile.

In the emerging markets of Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, mobile advertising growth will largely track the technology adoption and stabilization of emerging economies, but will mostly be driven by large markets such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico. From 2015, growth rates in this region will exceed the worldwide average.

Focus on MENA

Digital ad spending has become the fastest growing segment in the marcom and ads sectors in the MENA region, largely thanks to increasingly adaptive young majority in the population. The ad sector is transforming very quickly in the region and is estimated to grow by 37% each year to reach $1 billion as of 2017. It’s paralleled closely with the global growth in digital advertising which is expected to increase by 5.5% this year to $537 billion.

Mobile ad spending, on the other hand, is growing slower in MENA. Globally it grew 105% in 2013 reaching $31.5 billion. Mobile ad spends in MENA has increased by 58%, from $50 million in 2012 to $85 million this year. However, it is one segment which is predicted to be growing steadily for many years to come as the markets are still far from mobile saturation point and the young and free-minded users are already shifting to digital for a better connection with the world.

The question here is: With the increasing interest in digital and mobile advertising, will the traditional business of ad 

agencies, many of whom are in the process of restructuring their organizations and building digital capacities to enable them to better serve their clients’ digital marketing needs, be disrupted? We would love to hear your thoughts on that.