Advertising & PR Agencies NAICS 541810, 541820

Jun 9, 2025 - Advertising Giants Heading in Opposite Directions

• Advertising giant WPP plans to move on from CEO Mark Read, who has been with the company for 30 years and the top executive for seven, reflecting a broader turmoil in an industry struggling with shifting market trends. Read’s tenure has been rocky, dogged by a share price that has fallen more than half since his hiring, and high profile client losses including Coca-Cola and Starbucks. WPP, along with other advertising companies, is grappling with advertisers cutting back on spending amid higher costs from tariffs. While WPP’s share price has cratered, rival Publicis’s stock rose 80% during that same time period. Publicis became the world’s largest ad agency due to a quicker adoption of increasingly critical data, e-commerce, and AI operations. Use of AI is also increasing ad creation services from Google and other tech companies, marking potentially formidable new ad industry competition and a danger to the agency model.
• Total US spending on advertising is expected to grow 4.5% in 2025, according to an S&P Global forecast, as consumers continue to spend despite growing fears about the state of the economy. The industry is expected to continue its shift towards digital advertising and away from legacy media (TV, radio, print). S&P expects digital advertising will expand by 9.1% this year, a slowdown from the 13.8% expansion in 2024 as the relatively new market normalizes. Digital ad growth is the fastest growing advertising segment as consumers shift away from traditional TV in favor of streaming and the technology offers detailed demographic user info to better target potential customers. National television advertising is expected to drop 8.9% in 2025 without the benefit of political ads or the Olympics as in 2024.

• Television’s “upfront” season, when broadcasters vie for advertising dollars, faces major hurdles this year amidst trade wars and the lowest consumer confidence since October 2011. Sales are slow in 2025 for consumer product makers and restaurants as consumers pull back spending due to tariff concerns, which causes companies to slash marketing budgets and spend less freely than in years past. Linear television also faces a glut of ad inventory from the proliferation of streaming platforms, removing a sense of urgency from advertisers to buy space now. Emarketer predicts that ad spending could fall as much as 20.5% this year to $13.9 billion. Sports, however, is a huge bright spot and gives advertisers their best opportunity to reach massive audiences across both linear and streaming television. Audience fragmentation across channels make sports advertising practically a must buy.
• Total US spending on advertising is expected to grow 4.5% in 2025, according to an S&P Global forecast, as consumers continue to spend despite growing fears about the state of the economy. The industry is expected to continue its shift towards digital advertising and away from legacy media (TV, radio, print). S&P expects digital advertising will expand by 9.1% this year, a slowdown from the 13.8% expansion in 2024 as the relatively new market normalizes. Digital ad growth is the fastest growing advertising segment as consumers shift away from traditional TV in favor of streaming and the technology offers detailed demographic user info to better target potential customers. National television advertising is expected to drop 8.9% in 2025 without the benefit of political ads or the Olympics as in 2024.