While advertising growth is projected to decelerate this year due to tough comparisons with 2024's Olympics and U.S. election-year spending, the U.S. will retain its share of the worldwide marketplace, according to new estimates released this morning by media industry economist PQ Media.
Worldwide advertising and marketing expenditures will decelerate by 3.3 percentage points this year -- dropping from an expansion of 8.7% in 2024 to 5.4% in 2025.
U.S. spending, meanwhile, will drop from an expansion of 9.7% in 2024 to 5.4% in 2025.
In terms of total volume, however, the U.S. will retain a nearly 40% share of worldwide advertising and marketing expenditures.
All things considered, this is a pretty bullish outlook for post-quadrennial years, especially given the kind of mixed geopolitical and macroeconomic indicators that many of the ad industry's ad-forecasting units were caveating with when they released their year-end outlooks nearly two months ago.
advertisement
advertisement
That said, PQ CEO Patrick Quinn also sees some geopolitical -- especially U.S. political -- volatility given the transition to a new, radical administration.
“Early pacing data in 2025 shows that brands are starting to trim their budgets in anticipation of the Trump tariff policies, despite consumers still spending online and shopping at brick-and-mortar stores," he notes. However, he adds that 2026 should see incremental gains due to the 2026 FIFA World Cup and a new election-year spending in many markets, including the U.S.