• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 27, 2024

The good news is that October turned in the 18th consecutive month of expansion for the U.S. advertising market. The bad news is the month's growth decelerated to the lowest rate  -- +0.9% -- since September 2023, according to MediaPost's analysis of data from Guideline's U.S. Ad Market Tracker.

October's tepid growth follows three months of double-digit market expansion. It also compares with a relatively modest 2.3% expansion in October 2023.

Going back three years, October 2022 actually declined 1.9% due to the pandemic-related advertising recession that year, so looking over a three-year period, the U.S. ad market has experienced an average growth rate of only 0.4% expansion over the past three Octobers.

The last healthy growth rate for the month was October 2021, when ad spending rose 8.2%. But even that was posting on a relatively soft comp with October 2020's +1.7% growth, which marked the end of the first pandemic-related U.S. ad recession.

While it's unclear what contributed to this October's tepid growth, especially in an Olympic/elections year and heading into a holiday marketing cycle, it may be related to record political ad spending depleting some advertising inventory for conventional brand marketers.

"Our analysis of October 2024's growth deceleration reveals a drag due to traditional media drop (-15% year-over-year)," notes Guideline Analyst of Advertising Insights Momo Jin, adding: "Double-digit drop observed only in May and October this year, with all other months either up or experiencing only single-digit declines.

"A primary factor contributing to this downturn appears to be a decrease in sports programming, which saw an overall drop of -0.5% year-over-year, driven largely by a -16% decrease in NCAA football media spend."

Guideline's analysis also finds that out-of-home ad spending, which had been demonstrating growth, "reversed into negative territory (-27% year-over-year) in October 2024.

"This shift suggests a potential crowding out of conventional brand advertising, possibly due to an increase in political ad spending associated with the election cycle," explains Jin.