COVID-19 has turned many sectors upside down this year and media investment has not been spared. It is time to take stock for this year. Who are the big winners and losers and what is the future for media buying in 2021? Following the results of the latest Magna study, here is an overview of the advertising market in France in 2020 and the forecasts for 2021.
To remember :
Digital advertising has passed a milestone this year as it now represents more than 50% of advertising spending. This strong craze for digital advertising mitigates the 7.2% (12.2 billion euros) drop in overall investment in 2020 and makes the note much less salty than expected; Magna predicted in June 2020 a drop of 13.1%.
Press, television, radio, billboards and cinema: sectors that are suffering... but with a recovery in 2021
Outdoor advertising and movie theatres suffered greatly from the lockdown and ended the year with a 31% and 70% decrease in advertising spending, respectively. It should also be noted that this is the first time in 30 years that outdoor advertising fell below one billion euros. Despite these poor results, outdoor advertising in France still has many good hours ahead of it with the approach of many sporting events in 2021 and 2022 such as the Tokyo Olympics and the Football World Cup, but especially in 2024, with the arrival of the Paris Olympic Games.
As for newspapers and magazines, the budget cuts made by many advertisers have also been significant and have impacted advertising spending on these media with a drop of 30% for magazines and 22% for newspapers.
The two media that moderate their losses are television (-12%) and radio (-11%).
The Magna study is positive for these traditional advertising channels since it forecasts a market recovery +8.3% in 2021 with the television and press sectors at +6%, radio at +8% and outdoor advertising at +18.4%!
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Digital advertising is still accelerating
As far as digital advertising is concerned, the situation is much more positive. Its growth has nevertheless been slowed down by this year's particular economic context, but we have seen a clear acceleration in the consumption of video formats and social networks.
The big winners were Google, Facebook and Amazon who saw their market share increase by 70%. Indeed, the various marketing players have favoured digital spending to quickly activate lead generation or sales during this period. Small businesses have also adapted by developing rapidly on the web and offering services such as e-commerce, home delivery or click & collect.
The only digital advertising format that has not experienced growth is the static display -19.9%. On the other hand, search (+3.6%), social networks (+18.6%) and videos (+13.7%) have experienced a nice growth.
This growth is not going to stop in 2021, Magna forecasts a new acceleration in spending with +8.8% for search, +17.1% for video, +7.7% for display and +20.1% for social networks, figures that make your head spin! The share of digital would then rise in 2021 to 56% of total spending on multimedia advertising.
Source : Magna