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The advertising industry defied expectations in 2024, but don’t expect 2025 to be as rosy, according to industry analyst Brian Wieser.
Last week, Wieser, a former GroupM economic analyst who now authors the Madison and Wall newsletter, published his quarterly forecast of industry growth, finding that US ad revenue grew roughly 9% this year, nearly 1.8% higher than he previously forecast.
However, he’s already tamped down his expectations for the new year, calling for growth of 4.5%. That’s well below the forecast given by his former employer, which is projecting growth of about 7% in 2025. It’s also lower than his previous forecast of 5.3% growth in 2025.
“I’m trying to be as apolitical as possible and trying to not apply wishful thinking to how things might work out,” Wieser told Marketing Brew. Though markets have lately been “willfully optimistic,” it’s “hard to reconcile that with what seems more likely to occur,” he added.
Why assume the role of Madison Avenue’s Grinch? If there is a jolt in M&A activity in the new year, a more concentrated industry might not be inclined to spend as much on advertising, Wieser wrote. Furthermore, he added, President-elect Trump’s proposed tariffs would “almost certainly have direct negative consequences on advertising, especially among the cross-border drop-shipping importers based in China” if they go into effect.
And if proposed restrictions on pharma advertising become reality, that could also tamp down those budgets.
The good news: The booming retail media category is expected to bear the brunt of any potential slowdown, as those platforms are the recipient of most of the cross-border advertisers and trade between the US and China, Wieser wrote. With that said, Wieser projects that retail media will grow just 9.4% in 2025, much lower than the 18.3% growth it experienced in 2024.
React accordingly, he advised.
“From a marketer’s perspective, I would argue you should be completely indifferent about most of this stuff. Just because the ad market or media is growing doesn’t tell us anything about your business as a marketer,” he said. “I’d say that most sellers of advertising should mute their expectations.”