• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 25, 2024

Citing improvements in the U.S. economy, ad industry economist Brian Wieser this morning revised his ad outlook up for the second time since first benchmarking his estimate in September 2023.

Wieser now projects the U.S. ad economy will expand 5.6% this year -- up from the 4.3% he originally projected in September 2023, and up from 5.2% in his last upward revision in November 2023.

"To explain why I’m more positive about the market than I was before, future economic expectations -- which I already viewed positively throughout 2022 and 2023 -- have improved noticeably," Wieser writes in this morning's edition of his Madison and Wall newsletter. "GDP forecasts for 2024 in real terms were up by nearly a percentage point in February vs. November in the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s most recent Survey of Professional Forecasters’ release, with implied nominal GDP expectations approaching 5% for 2024 vs. closer to 4% previously."

Significantly, Wieser's outlook excludes what also is expected to be a record year for political ad spending in the U.S., which is projected to add as much as $11 billion to the U.S. ad economy -- from both up- and down-ballot spending, including issues-oriented advertising.

Interestingly, most of that political ad spending will benefit traditional media -- especially linear TV -- which otherwise might be continuing its downward trend.

Nearly two-thirds of 2024 U.S. political ad spending is projected to be allocated to TV, with a third going to digital, which is the opposite ratios of the overall U.S. advertising marketplace.

In this morning's updated forecast, Wieser projects U.S. digital ad spending -- excluding political -- will rise from 64% last year to 76% by 2028.

"Meanwhile, I expect television at a national level (including connected TV) to continue to experience the challenges I have written about previously (i.e. creative destruction in the economy favoring advertisers who use little television and mix shifts from incumbent advertisers favoring “performance” media overlapping negative sentiment driven by cord-cutting and ad inventory erosion)," Wieser writes.