2021 strong year for marketing budgets globally; growth led by Digital, Mobile, TV & OOH: WARC's Global Marketing Index

2021 proved to be a strong year for marketing budgets globally, as per WARC’s annual review of its Global Marketing Index (GMI) for the 12 months of the past year. It adds that the recovery was led by Digital, Mobile, TV and Out-of-Home, with OOH coming back into growth following the lifting of restrictions.

Further analysis of WARC’s data reveals that there was a 23.8% resurgence in marketing budgets across channels in 2021, valued at $ 771 billion. 

It states that digital and mobile media rose up by 41.9%, OTT video 41.6% and search 39.4%. TV rose by 5.5% from 2020 and OOH by 21.8%.

WARC’s GMI provides a monthly indicator of the state of the global marketing industry, by tracking and analysing conditions among 1000+ marketers, including marketing budgets, trading conditions and staffing levels. This is accompanied by additional analysis from WARC Data.

The report states that in 2021, key successes, such as vaccine programmes across the world, helped markets set themselves up to live with Covid rather than despite it.

The report adds that although key indices in APAC, Europe and the Americas remain in growth, it is a tale of two halves. APAC markets, which have operated a zero-Covid strategy, saw decreased rates of growth in the summer, in line with restrictions being imposed. This is in stark contrast to markets in Europe and America which decided to live with the virus and consequently saw the highest rates of growth in the same period.

It goes on to state that despite this, markets in APAC have since recovered with marketing budgets and trading conditions showing a higher level of growth compared to Europe and America. 

It also goes on to highlight that the economic fallout of the pandemic resulted in the mass exodus of workers across America, now coined as ‘The Great Resignation’. This has been captured in the GMI as staffing levels in the Americas have consistently outperformed Europe and APAC in 2021.

However, the movement was not limited to America as staffing levels in both Europe and APAC have seen an increased rate of growth in Q4. 

“From August onwards, global staffing levels have seen the highest rates of growth since the inception of the Global Marketing Index in 2011, with November and December at 65.3 (the highest index value),” it said.

Zoe McCready, Senior Research Executive, WARC, said, "The Global Marketing Index 2021 shows a consistent overall increase in growth throughout the year, which culminated in November recording the highest Global Headline Index value since the inception of the report in 2011.” 

“This reflects an industry that is largely weathering the impact of the pandemic as it rapidly adjusts to new trading conditions which point to the ongoing strength of digital and mobile channels driven by the continued rise of e-commerce. Increased staffing levels recorded globally make up for the impact of the Great Resignation, however, this could present productivity challenges in 2022, especially in the Americas, due to factors such as skills shortages.” 

The full report is available here.

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