UK, TV advertising expenditure by product category

Rob Clapp

An overview of UK TV advertising expenditure among the top five product categories between 2009 and 2017.

Food continues to be the biggest TV advertising category in the UK but is being increasingly challenged, according to data from the AA/WARC Expenditure Report and Nielsen. The product category's total adspend, net of discounts from rate-card level data, equalled £554.3 million last year. However, entertainment & leisure and finance were not far behind, at £533.4 million and £522.3 million respectively.

While each of the top five product categories recorded a dip in TV adspend in 2017, food saw the largest decrease, with TV investment dipping 12.3% year-on-year. Entertainment & leisure and finance saw far smaller drops, down...

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