Automotive ad spend to decline 12.4% in 2023

Global advertising investment forecast for the automotive category.

Global advertising investment by automotive brands is forecast to decrease by 12.4% year-on-year in 2023, continuing a long-term trend of declining spend by car-makers.

Aside from a post-COVID splurge in 2021, global automotive ad spend has reduced every year since 2016. Total investment fell 5.3% to $42.4bn in 2022, according to WARC Media. A similar pattern of shrinking investment can be seen at an advertiser level with Ford, GM, and Nissan.

In the decade since 2013, automotive’s share of total worldwide ad spend has dropped from 10.1% to a forecasted 4.1% this...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands