LONDON: Advertising expenditure in Great Britain - currently the world's third largest advertising economy after the US and Japan - exceeded £19 billion ($37.53bn; €27.78bn) in 2006 according to the Advertising Association's Advertising Statistics Yearbook 2007, to be published next month.

Researched and compiled on behalf of the AA by the World Advertising Research Center, the study reflects advertising spending in total, rather than media income. It therefore includes production costs and ad agency fees and commission in addition to media expenditure.

Headline statistics from the survey are . . .
  • Display Advertising Overall
    (This was calculated by removing classified advertising expenditure from the data and treating all internet search ads as classified.) Television was the biggest medium with a 34.1% share, with the press taking second place (32.0%), followed by direct mail (17.2%), outdoor (8.0%), radio (4.0%), internet (3.4%) and cinema (1.4%).

  • Press
    The sector as a whole declined by 2.7%, with regional newspapers, consumer magazines and business magazines all suffering decreased levels of adspend last year compared with 2005. However, not all press sectors saw falls in expenditure, as adspend in directories grew by 3.8% to £1,174 million at current prices, whilst national newspapers rose marginally to £1,914m.

  • Broadcast Media
    Revenues in this sector were also on the ebb, with television expenditure falling 4.7% to £4,594m at current prices - its first annual decline since 2001 - and radio adspend down 7.7% on 2005.

  • Revenue Gains
    The two largest gains in percentage terms were recorded by the outdoor advertising sector, which increased 4.0% to £1,084m, and the internet. The latter rose 47% to £2,016m, achieving for the first time a share of total UK adspend in excess of 10%.
For further information on the AA's Advertising Statistics Yearbook 2007 click here.

Data sourced from Advertising Association (UK); additional content by WARC staff