US advertising and marketing media spend grew by 9.4% year-over-year in 2022 to total $480.8 billion, a slower rate of growth than witnessed in 2021. Nonetheless, offline media contributed in some part to the near-double-digit increase, growing by 4.2% over 2021 to a total of $203.5 billion, per a report from Winterberry Group.
Offline media’s growth rate in 2022 was slower than a year earlier, but bucked the 4-year compound annual growth rate (-2.9%). Nonetheless, the trend towards greater investment in digital continues, as offline media fell to roughly 42.3% share of total spend in 2022, down from 44.4% in 2021. This year, offline marketing spending is forecast to dip by 0.7%, with its share predicted to decline to 39.7% of the predicted total of $509.2 billion.
Here’s a rundown of offline channels in order of their total spend in 2022.
Linear TV
Linear TV ad spend continues to be pressured by digital alternatives. Last year, linear TV ad spend grew by 2.5% (buoyed by political ad spend, but slower than the forecast rate of 3.5%) to $61.5 billion. However, that total is less than the combined total of $68.2 billion spent last year on digital video ($47 billion) and CTV ($21.2 billion).
Linear TV will fall further behind this year, as the analysis predicts a drop of 7.5% to $56.9 billion. This would be the largest relative decline in spend of any offline medium, and the result of “secular, not cyclical shifts in linear TV to digital video.”
Direct Mail
Marketers have been reporting increases in their direct mail budgets, and this is reflected in Winterberry Group’s data, which indicates a 1.7% increase in spending on this channel in 2022, to $41.7 billion.
This year is forecast to be even kinder to direct mail, with a predicted growth of 3.3% (the second-fastest of all offline media) to $43.1 billion.
Experiential/Sponsorship
Experiential/sponsorship media spend continues to rebound after its precipitous decline in 2020, following up an impressive 27.6% year-over-year rise in 2021 with a healthy 13% hike in 2022, well above the 4.2% average increase for offline media.
The channel is also expected to see growth this year, with spend forecast to rise by 4.3% to $43 billion, almost on par with the forecast spend on direct mail ($43.1 billion).
Shopper Marketing
Accounting for $22.3 billion of spend in 2022, Shopper Marketing media, which includes merchandising, in-store displays, sampling, retail-specific coupons/offers and in-store events, grew by 3.9% from the year earlier. Growth is expected to slow this year, with spending predicted to climb by just 0.9% y-o-y to reach $22.5 billion.
Radio
Radio continues to have the widest reach of any medium, and as such retains appeal for advertisers. Last year, offline radio experienced a 2.5% increase in spend to $12.2 billion, double that spent on digital audio (radio/podcasts).
This year won’t bring growth to the radio advertising market, though, per the report, which projects a 1% decline in radio ad spend to $12.1 billion.
Traditional Out-of-HomeÂ
US out-of-home (OOH) advertising spending (including digital OOH) has recovered to pre-pandemic levels. While digital has powered this growth, traditional OOH hasn’t been absent from the recovery. Indeed, this report shows that traditional OOH marketing spend grew by 7.7% y-o-y to reach $7.7 billion, overtaking the magazine and newspaper advertising totals.
This year, however, should bring growth to a standstill, with a forecast increase of just 0.4%.
Magazines and Newspapers
Marketers invested $6.8 billion in print magazine media last year, a decrease of 9.1% compared to 2021, but a better result than expected. This year won’t look quite as bad even amidst continued declines, with spending expected to drop by 5% to $6.4 billion.
Print newspaper media will see a slightly larger decline in spending this year (-6% to $6.2 billion), though it fared better than magazines last year, with a comparably smaller 5.6% drop in spend.
Addressable TV
Among the offline channels examined, Addressable TV saw the fastest growth in 2022 (24.3%), though admittedly from the smallest base, with advertisers spending $3.5 billion on this channel last year. This year, Winterberry Group forecasts this to be the only offline channel to experience double-digit growth, predicting a 12.2% rise to $4 billion in spend.
The full report can be found here.
