German advertising market may grow slightly again in 2024

The JOM Group’s current advertising market forecast predicts renewed growth of around 1.2 per cent for 2024. Increasing momentum expected from the second half of the year.

Hamburg, 7  December 2023. The German advertising market is expected to close the current year with a decline of around 1.5 per cent. Sadly, the hope of a recovery in the current year has not come to fruition. The first half of the year in particular dragged the market into negative territory against the difficult background of war, inflation and recession.

The experts from the JOM Group do not expect a major recovery in the coming year either. Nevertheless, the German advertising market is likely to inch slightly ahead again in 2024 with an increase of around 1.2 per cent compared to the previous year, starting to make progress on the development that had been expected in 2023. This brings the total volume to just over EUR 26 billion (2023: EUR €25.7 billion).

JOM believes that stronger growth impetus is realistic, particularly from the second half of the year onwards, in the wake of an improved economic situation compared to this year and an improved consumer climate (annual report by the German Council of Economic Experts). The European Football Championship being hosted in this country could serve as a kind of starting gun.

Development at media level continues
When considering individual media, JOM expects the progress from 2023 to continue. Online moving image advertising will exploit its increasing range and growing reach to continue to be one of the biggest growth drivers with an expected increase of 8 to 10 per cent. As a result, there is a continuing shift of traditional TV budgets to the digital world.

JOM also sees radio and outdoor advertising continuing to follow a successful course in the coming year. Advertising in the retail environment and the use of corresponding retailer data (retail media) is likely to be an additional driver in the out-of-home and online categories.

Unprecedented possibilities from the range of media offers
“We currently have two forces in the market from our point of view: on the one hand, the overall economic situation remains difficult, prompting companies to cut costs rather than expand their marketing budgets. On the other hand, though, there is an increasingly networked, data-enriched and digital media offering unprecedented opportunities for measurability and efficiency – if used correctly,” explains Volker Neumann, Managing Director JOM Group. “That’s why it’s down to consultants in the sector to point out prospects and the resulting return on investment in order to secure investments on the company side or make them possible in the first place.”